Sytkan waved a hand at the ruins of Arlen. 'Things change,' he said. 'The Dordovans wanted something we were not prepared to give.'
'Which was?'
'Their mages in the research party.'
'And this is the result?' The Unknown shook his head. 'Gods burning, was it really worth going to war over?'
'If not this then something else.' Sytkan shrugged.
The Unknown slapped the railing. 'But this was supposed to help broker peace! What the hell went wrong?'
Sytkan didn't answer.
'Dystran and Vuldaroq,' said The Unknown, answering for him. 'You don't need this, you know - the colleges, that is. There's already unrest.' He gestured back at Arlen. 'This sort of thing will be the death of magic, ultimately.'
Sytkan snorted. 'I hardly think so.'
The Unknown rounded on him and pushed his face in very close. 'Don't underestimate Selik and the Black Wings. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a family to attend to and a cut to stitch.'
He nodded at Jevin as he descended the ladder, pain shooting through his left hip and lower back. Now the adrenaline was gone, the liberties he'd taken with his old wound were taking their toll. Before going below, he scanned the deck once more, seeing too many Xeteskians on it.
Ilkar wasn't going to like this. He wasn't going to like this at all.
Chapter 2.
Two hours before dawn and the mood of the rainforest changed. Imperceptible to all but those whose lives were inextricably linked to the canopy but there just the same. Rebraal became utterly still, all but invisible against his background.
Behind him, the green-gold dome of Aryndeneth rose two hundred feet into the air, its apex on a level with the highest boughs of the canopy. The temple had stood for over five thousand years, its stone partially hidden beneath a tapestry of thick mosses, ivies and liana. It was periodically cleared but the voracious forest growth didn't lose its grip for long.
But whether cleared or not, the temple was barely visible more than fifty yards away.
It hadn't always been like this. In the centuries after its building, Aryndeneth had been a place of pilgrimage, revered by the elves as the centre of their faith. The Earth Home. A grand stone apron with a carved path between the massive slabs had greeted travellers, and the rainforest trail had been carefully cleared and maintained for a hundred miles north.
Now the trail was long gone, and though a portion of the apron and its path was still visible beneath the weeds and creepers the rainforest's march was relentless, and Rebraal and his people fought a constant battle against it.
Rebraal looked to his right across the great iron-bound wooden doors of the temple. Mercuun had sensed it too. His eyes were scanning the dark, his ears pricked gauging the forest mood. Further out, on the tree platforms, Skiriin, Rourke and Flynd'aar had bows ready. It was all the confirmation Rebraal needed.
He cocked an ear and listened hard, trying to gain a sense of the potential threat. The noise of the forest surrounded him, the heat stifling even in the hours before dawn. A dozen species of birds called mating or warning, monkeys screeched and greeted, their progress through the canopy marked by the rustle and crack of branches. Myriad insects buzzed, vibrated and rasped and the growl of a wildcat punctuated the pre-dawn cacophony.
In every way but one, it was as every other night Rebraal could remember. This night though, the accent of the warnings was different. There was a change in the atmosphere and every creature in the forest felt it. Strangers. Close and dead ahead.
The clicking of a brown tree frog filtered down from one of the platforms. Rebraal looked up. Rourke signalled eight strangers approaching in single file; warriors and mages hacking a path to Aryndeneth. They were not pilgrims. No pilgrims were due until after the rainy season and that was fifty days away. Rebraal nodded, put fingers to his eyes and drew another across his throat. Whoever they were, they could not be allowed to escape with word of the location.
He snapped his fingers twice and heard Erin'heth and Sheth'erei move up on his left. SpellShields were deployed and he went forward, sensing Mercuun matching his pace. The two warriors made no sound, the mages behind them moving only to keep them within the shields. Glancing at the platforms suspended thirty feet into the trees bordering the apron, Rebraal saw the trio of archers tracking targets. From the angle of the bows, they were close, perhaps fifty yards away, no more. He stopped, hand up.
The blundering of the strangers was easily audible now and the forest around them was quietening. He waved behind him with his left arm, pointing up to send Erin'heth ahead to shield the platform. He drew his slender, quick blade, holding it in his right hand. With his left, he reached across and unclasped the pouch of jaqrui throwing crescents on his belt.
Now he paced forward again, acute eyes narrowing, seeing movement in the darkness ahead. The strangers were carrying no light but that wouldn't hide them. He could hear the regular hack of blades on vegetation, the cracking of twigs underfoot and the odd snatch of speech. No doubt they had been told that noise would deter predators in the rainforest. And so it was but with one particularly deadly exception.
The strangers would never set eyes on the temple. Rebraal called the peculiar wail of the tawny buzzard and began to run, footsteps ghosting over the edge of the apron and on into the forest.
Arrows whipped away from the platforms. Strangled cries came from the strangers and he heard the sound of bodies hitting the forest floor. Another volley thrummed into the dark. Orders and shouts snapped out and the surviving strangers scattered. Rebraal gripped a jaqrui and ducked low as he entered the thick growth, flicking it out backhand when he saw the face of a crouching warrior peering over a fallen log. Shaped like a miniature sickle with a two-fingered grip at one end, the razor-sharp double-edged crescent whispered as it flew, small enough to find gaps in the hanging vines.
The warrior might have heard it but he didn't see it coming, looking straight at its trajectory as it struck him in the forehead just above his eyebrows. He screamed and fell back. Rebraal tore on, flitting through gaps in the lush flora, circling the survivors with Mercuun appearing again in his vision to complete the pincer.
He could see a pair of mages, one crouched, one standing, staring blankly up into the canopy, searching for the platforms. One had prepared a spell, one had cast, his face creased in concentration. Presumably a HardShield to beat away more arrows.
Rebraal stormed in, the standing mage seeing him only when he was within five yards. He leapt the crouched mage and struck his companion with both feet in the chest, the man going down before he had a chance to cast. Rebraal landed astride him, stabbed down into his heart, turned and lashed his sword into the throat of the other, who had turned to stare at their assailant. Another arrow punched through the foliage and a man gurgled and fell close to Rebraal's right side. He heard the clash of steel, the thud of a sword on leather armour and a cry of pain, quickly cut off.
'That's all of them,' came a voice from a platform.
'Keep watching, Rourke,' acknowledged Rebraal. 'Good shooting. '
He checked for signs of life at his feet then moved away into the bush to retrieve his crescent. The warrior was still breathing but blood and brain oozed from the wound. Rebraal skewered his heart with his blade then placed a foot on the man's skull, leaning down to lever the crescent clear. He wiped it on his victim's shirt before returning it to the pouch, which he snapped shut.
He felt Mercuun at his shoulder.
'What shall we do with them?'
Rebraal looked into his friend's dark-skinned face, saw the brow above the angled oval eyes furrowed and his leaf-shaped, gently pointed ears pricking as he tried to come to terms with what had just happened.
'Get Skiriin and take them away from the path they made, over to the clearing north. Keep anything useful, shred their clothes and leave the bodies. The forest will take care of them.'
'Rebraal?' There was an edge to Mercuun's voice.
'Yes, Meru?'
'Who were they and how did they know where to find us?' Rebraal ran a hand through his long black hair. 'Two very good questions,' he said. 'They're from Balaia certainly, but beyond that who can tell? I'm going to track back along their route in the morning, see if I can find anything. Meantime we have to keep vigilant.'
'They won't be the last, will they?' said Mercuun.
'No,' said Rebraal. 'If I had my guess I'd say they were picking the path here. They were travelling too light for anything else. There will be more to come, and they might not be far away. We may not have much time.'
Rebraal looked deep into Mercuun's face and saw the worry that he felt himself. It was bad enough that these men from the northern continent had managed to gain information no man should. But they had also evaded those that fed disinformation and the TaiGethen who killed those who persisted. It was an immense rainforest but the outer circle and town dwellers of his kind had kept the uninvited from Aryndeneth for more than four hundred years.
He clicked his tongue, a decision made. 'Meru, I want you to get the word around. Start at sunrise. We can't wait for the relief. Every available Al-Arynaar must get here as quickly as they can. And the outer circles must press into the north. I want word as far north as Tolt-Anoor, west to Ysundeneth and east to Heri-Benaar. Take supplies for two days, start the message rolling and get back here.'
Mercuun nodded.
Rebraal walked back towards the temple and took in its camouflaged majesty, a sight of which he would never tire. He knelt on the apron and offered a prayer to Yniss, the God of harmony, to protect them all. When he was done, he leant his hands on his thighs and listened again to the forest.
It at least was resting easy once again.
Hirad Coldheart shifted his back where he leant against Sha-Kaan's broad neck, feeling the scales chafing him through his wool shirt. He got a taste of the dragon's strong sour oil and wood smell as he did so and was glad they sat in the open air. The Great Kaan's enormous body, more than one hundred and twenty feet from snout to tail, was stretched out along a contour of the slope on which they rested, overlooking the tarnished idyll of Herendeneth.
The small island, no more than a mile and a half wide and two long, lay deep within the Ornouth Archipelago, which basked under the warm sun of the Southern Ocean off the north-eastern tip of Calaius, the Southern Continent. It was a perfect mix of lush green slopes, waving beech groves and spectacular rock faces surrounding a shallow mountain peak on which stood a great stone needle, monument to the long-dead of an ancient magic. But the perfection had been scarred for ever by battle and the death of innocence.
Sha-Kaan had positioned his head so that he could see both Hirad and down the slopes to the groves, graveyard terraces and gardens. Beyond them were the ruins of the once proud house of the Al-Drechar, now devastated by a magic that had threatened the entire Balaian dimension. His left eye swivelled to fix the barbarian warrior with an unblinking stare.
'Are my scales an irritant to you?' he rumbled.
'Well they aren't the most ideal cushion,' said Hirad.
'I'll have someone rub them smooth for you. Just point out those which require attention.'
Hirad chuckled and turned to look into the Great Kaan's startling blue eye which was set into a head almost as tall as he was.
'Your sense of humour's coming on, I see,' he said. 'Still a long way to go, though.'
Sha-Kaan's slitted black pupil narrowed. 'One roll and I could snap your frail body like a twig.'
Hirad felt the humour in his mind like tendrils of mist on the breeze. There was no doubt the dragon had mellowed during their enforced stay on Herendeneth. In times past, he might have made that comment with both sincerity and intent. Still, joke or not, it remained true.
'Just being honest,' said Hirad.
'As am I.'
They fell silent. It had been a long time coming, getting on for six years, but Hirad felt he could now describe Sha-Kaan as a friend. He had likened his relationship to the dragon to an apprenticeship. Ever since he'd agreed to become the Great Kaan's Dragonene, so giving the dragon a life-sustaining link to the Balaian dimension, he'd been the lesser partner in an unequal alliance. Although the benefits of direct contact and support from a dragon were obvious, throughout the time they'd known each other, the awesome creature, secure in his mastery and power, had felt he had nothing to prove to the human. Hirad had felt absolutely the reverse.
But the inequality had lessened during Sha-Kaan and his Brood brother Nos-Kaan's long exile in Balaia. Locked in a foreign dimension by a violent realignment of dimensional space and his home lost to his senses, Sha-Kaan had become aware of his mortality as his health slowly suffered. And Hirad believed that his unflinching loyalty to the Kaan dragons had proved that he was far more than a glorified servant but was a true friend. It seemed that at last Sha-Kaan concurred with that view.
Hirad's attention was caught by movement down on the terraces. A woman walked from behind a small tree-studded grotto and knelt by a beautiful array of flowers on a small mound of carefully tended earth. She was mid-height, with a full figure, her auburn hair tied back with a black ribbon. She plucked some weeds from the bed and Hirad saw her nipping the dead-heads from some of the taller fronds whose large yellow blooms blew in the gentle warm breeze.
As always when he saw her, Hirad's heart thudded a little harder and his mood dipped, sadness edging into his mind. To an untutored eye, the woman might have been simply enjoying the beauty she had created. But she was Erienne, who was enduring pain beyond comprehension, because beneath the bed lay the body of her daughter, Lyanna.
Lyanna, whom The Raven had come to save; whose five-year-old mind couldn't contain the power within it; and whose uncontrolled magic threatened to destroy Balaia. Lyanna, who had been allowed to die by the very people Erienne had trusted to train her and so allow her to live.
And that last was something Hirad found impossible to really understand; even though during his half-year on Herendeneth he'd had plenty of opportunity to work it out. After all, two of the four Al-Drechar who had let Lyanna die were still alive and living in the habitable areas of their house here on the island. But their explanations about Lyanna's burgeoning power and her inability to ever control it, given her age and physical frailty, went straight over his head.
All he knew was that the nucleus of the One magic that Lyanna had hosted had been transferred to Erienne even as the little girl had died. And that Erienne hated it - felt it was a disease she couldn't cure - and that made her hate the surviving Al-Drechar even more. It made her head ache, she said, and though the Al-Drechar, both frail old elven women, said they could train her to control, use and develop it, she wouldn't as much as acknowledge their presence.
Hirad could understand that reaction. In fact he remained astounded she hadn't tried to kill the surviving pair. He knew what he'd want for those who murdered any child of his. But he was grateful nonetheless. Because, despite Sha-Kaan's current light mood, the dragon's exile in Balaia was slowly killing him; and the Al-Drechar with their understanding and expertise in dimensional theory were the Kaan's best chance of getting home.
It all added to the bowstring tension they had endured every day for their two seasons on Herendeneth. Hirad found himself needing the very people Erienne hated with a deep and abiding passion. Yet, even within that hatred, there was a part of her that needed the Al-Drechar too. Lyanna had been a child of the One, the ancient magical order that had dominated Balaia before the establishment of the four colleges over two thousand years ago. Erienne and Denser, her husband, still believed in it and the Al-Drechar were its last practitioners. What Erienne carried in her mind was the last hope for the order, but she would have to accept help from the Al-Drechar. That knowledge merely added to her misery.
'Her mind is clouded,' said Sha-Kaan, looking down at Erienne.
'Grief obscures rationality.' There was no sense of any particular sympathy from the Great Kaan, who had been edging at the extremities of Erienne's mind with his own.
'That's only natural,' said Hirad.
'For humans,' returned Sha-Kaan. 'It makes her dangerous.'
Hirad sighed. 'Sha-Kaan, she's seen all three of her children murdered; Lyanna by the Al-Drechar, her twin sons by the Black Wing witch hunters. I'm surprised she retains any sanity at all. Wouldn't you feel the same?'
'In truth, birthings are an increasingly rare event among the Kaan,' said the dragon after a pause. 'But when a young Kaan dies, we have to replace the infant. We don't have time to mourn.'
'But you must have feelings for the mother and the youngster that dies,' said Hirad.
'The Brood mourns and the Brood supports. The mother's mind is warmed by the Brood psyche and her pain is lessened by sharing. That is the way of dragons. For humans, grief is solitary and so is prolonged.'
Hirad shook his head. 'It's not solitary. We're all here to help Erienne.'
'But because you can't get into her mind, you cannot help where she needs it the most.'
A reptilian bark echoed across the island and Nos-Kaan flew around the thirty-foot-high stone needle, gliding in to land close to Sha and Hirad, his golden back scales glittering in the sunlight, the earth vibrating as his hind feet touched the ground. His mighty wings, a hundred feet and more tip to tip, beat once to steady him then swept back to fold along his long body, air whipping across Hirad's face. Nos-Kaan's neck half coiled to bring his head next to Sha-Kaan's and the two dragons touched muzzles briefly. Even now, so many years on, Hirad found the sight awe-inspiring and felt a moment of pure insignificance in the face of such size and grace.
'Well met, Hirad,' said Nos-Kaan, his voice pained.
'How did the flight go?'
'Do you wish the truth?' asked the dragon. Hirad nodded. 'I must have the healing flows of inter-dimensional space or I will die. Before that I will be land-bound.'
Hirad was shaken. He had assumed the rest both Kaan had enjoyed these last two seasons in the warm climate on Herendeneth would cure them of the magical wounds they had suffered fighting the Dordovan mages.
'How long?'
'Another season, no more. I am weak, Hirad.'
'And you, Great Kaan?'
'I am in better health,' said Sha-Kaan. 'But death is inevitable if I cannot get home before too long. Where are your Unknown Warrior and his researchers?'
'He'll be here. He said he would.'
But Hirad had expected him before now. So long out of contact with the big man and he was beginning to fear something had happened to him. They had little news from Balaia - what they did get was through the incomplete knowledge of the Protectors - but none of it was good.
'Your loyalty is commendable,' said Sha-Kaan.
'He's Raven,' said Hirad, shrugging and standing. 'Time to check the sea for ships anyway.'
The truth was, he wanted to be alone for a moment. Only a season and Nos-Kaan would be dead. With the best will in the world, the research wouldn't have led to meaningful realignment spells by then. Nos-Kaan's grave was going to be Herendeneth.
He walked quickly down the slope, giving Erienne a wide berth and breaking into a trot as he passed the shored-up front doors of the house. The Protector, Aeb, stood at the entrance, unmoving, staring out northwards. Hirad nodded to him as he passed.
The single path down to the island's only landable beach wove through waving beech groves to the small, reefed inlet. It was a peaceful walk. The warm breeze through the trees rustled leaves; the calls of birds on the wing filtered through the branches as did the distant sound of waves on the shore. Despite what he'd just heard, Hirad found himself smiling. He turned a corner and it dropped from his lips.
'Gods burning,' he whispered, reaching instinctively for the blade he hadn't worn in a hundred days. He backed up the path.
Coming towards him were robed and cloaked men. Two dozen, maybe more. Mages. And where there were mages, there would be soldiers.
'Aeb!' he called over his shoulder. 'Darrick! We're under attack!'