The five remaining fanned out around him where he hovered, again beating his wings gently, displaying his scales, hanging perpendicular to the ground thousands of feet below.
'Do you know nothing, or are you so full of anger you cannot read the signs of your visitors?' Sha's voice carried across the winds of heights. He saw them hesitating, caught between their awe of him and their knowledge that together they might just take him down and strike a decisive victory.
'You are alone, Old Kaan,' taunted one. 'Vulnerable.'
'That I am,' said Sha-Kaan. 'And perhaps your minds should turn to wonder why that is? Had I come to challenge you, I would not have come alone.'
'We are unsure that you are alone,' said another.
Sha-Kaan looked long and slow at the skies all around them. The clouds he had come through were ten thousand feet above their heads. There was nowhere to hide.
'Then you should open your eyes, whelp. Now take me to Yasal-Naik, I must speak with him.'
'We will not. It is a trick to gain access to our Broodlands.'
Sha-Kaan sighed. 'Then bring him to me.'
'We do not take orders from the Kaan.'
Sha-Kaan rumbled in his throat. 'It is a request.'
'State the reason.'
'Because if he doesn't come and he doesn't listen to me, the Arakhe will soon destroy us all.'
There was a pause while they digested his statement and no doubt spoke among themselves, pulsing thoughts and ideas.
'There is no evidence to support this. Yasal will not thank us for disturbing him but he will thank us for bringing back your carcass.'
'And you will condemn your brood to extinction.' Sha-Kaan beat his wings once and extended his neck before bringing it back to a respectful 'S' shape. 'I ask you to believe me. I am Sha-Kaan and I have travelled alone to speak to Yasal. Let him decide my fate. I will abide by whatever he decrees.
'The choice, my young Naik, is yours.'
The Unknown didn't say much for a day. Hirad left him to it. The big warrior, limping a little more heavily, spent most of the time leaning on the aft rail, gazing back across the open water. He watched the Ornouth Archipelago diminishing towards the horizon. It was a beautiful sight with the sun still catching white sand or the azure shallow waters and throwing vibrant patterns onto the haze in the sky.
But Hirad knew he wasn't seeing that. All he could see were his wife and child disappearing beyond his reach and he had no real expectation of ever seeing them again.
It was dawn on the second day of their voyage back to Balaia. Hirad was on the wheel deck looking down on The Unknown's shaven head. Behind him, Jevin was guiding his novice helmsman. The elf's gentle voice little more than a murmur as he described the nuances of steering his sleek vessel.
Hirad felt a hand on his shoulder. Denser.
'Hey, big fella. Thinking too hard?'
Hirad turned briefly. 'Look what I've done.'
'He knows he's in the right place,' said Denser. 'Just give him time.'
'I've torn him from his family. It's unforgivable.'
'True but you can't think of it that way. Take it back as far as you like. Like I say, I'm more to blame. I'm a Xeteskian.'
'No you aren't. You're Raven.'
'I believed them for long enough.'
The Unknown turned and stared up at them, his face stone.
'Neither of you are helping me with your feeble angst,' he said. 'I have my own mind. I exercised it. Now let it drop.' He returned his gaze to the ocean.
'Where's Erienne?' asked Hirad after an uncomfortable pause.
'Resting. She and Cleress are still working on that casting.'
'Will it work?'
'We'd better hope so,' said Denser. 'Or this is going to be a very short attempt to save the world.'
Hirad chuckled but he didn't feel the humour, more Denser's unconscious adoption of Ilkar's turn of phrase. 'It could be that anyway. '
'How so?'
'Sha-Kaan pulsed me before dawn. He's trying to speak to the Naik.'
'Ah,' said Denser. He scratched at his neatly trimmed beard. 'Tricky.'
'Yeah. And if I don't hear from him again before we sight Balaia, we can assume he's dead.' Hirad didn't believe the words as he spoke them.
'Do you think he was serious when he talked about how he felt the dragons had to help us?'
'Denser, he is not given to talking bollocks, unlike your good self.'
'Just asking.'
'Tell me something, Denser.' It was The Unknown again. 'How long can Erienne keep this casting going?'
'I've no idea. It'll be draining. All the One castings are.'
'You two want to join me amidships? We need to think about tactics.'
Hirad smiled and gestured Denser to precede him. This was The Unknown he wanted. Reluctant, maybe, but thinking. The three men sat on netted crates under the mainmast.
'You understand what I'm getting at,' continued The Unknown. 'It's all very well when we've evened the odds under Erienne's casting. What if she is unable to cast for any reason?'
'Well, we won't be able to take down a single demon,' said Hirad.
'That's not strictly speaking true,' said The Unknown. 'What it will be is a question of keeping them distant enough for Denser to destroy with spells, right?'
'That's not something we can keep up indefinitely either,' said Hirad.
'Correct, but we have to work on the premise that we won't have to. It's a contingency until we can find shelter or Erienne can cast herself.' The Unknown must have seen the cynicism in Hirad's expression. 'Put it this way, if we are in a situation where Denser is our only effective weapon, we're already dead.'
'Thanks a heap,' said Denser.
'You know what I mean,' growled The Unknown. 'We'll be working to buy time and space, right? I've had an idea we should work on.'
'And there was I thinking you were back there mooning over your family,' said Hirad.
The Unknown almost smiled. 'Only ninety-nine per cent of the time. Go and get the others except Erienne. Auum and Rebraal too, we need them to act as demons.'
Hirad pushed himself off the crates. 'I hope this master tactic of yours protects us from a demon's touch. It only takes the one.'
'Been thinking about that too,' said The Unknown.
'Busy, this one per cent of your mind, isn't it?'
'Yes, Hirad, you should try it some time. Think about it. Rebraal says they are impervious because their religion gives them a single focus, a group belief. The Wesmen are apparently protected by the Spirits whom they worship and revere. The two are similar to my mind. It's about having something greater than yourself surrounding you. Something that binds you to the mass, gives you the strength of everyone who is like you.'
'Fantastic. I'll convert to elvish immediately,' said Hirad.
The Unknown's hand slapped him hard on the forearm. 'No! Bloody hell, Hirad, you can be truly stupid sometimes. This should have occurred to you already. Remember when the demons got at Will in Sha-Kaan's Klene that time?'
'Yeah. I remember he died. So what?'
'Couldn't steal his soul though, could they? Will died because they chilled his life and he wasn't strong enough to resist. Why don't you think his soul went to the pit, eh?'
Hirad shrugged and looked at Denser who was smiling at him. 'Something funny?'
'Only that I'm about to quote to you something you've quoted at me so many times I'm thinking of having it tattooed on my forehead. '
'What? That he was Raven and that makes a difference?'
'Stole my thunder.'
And even as he opened his mouth to object, Hirad could see The Unknown was right. He had felt it the moment they had sat together as The Raven in the Al-Drechar's house a few days before. You couldn't bottle it, it was just there. He could feel it now. Strength. Belief. Spirit.
'You know it,' said Hirad.
The Unknown stood and stared him in the eye. 'And I'll tell you something, Coldheart. I've already had my soul taken from me once. And nothing and nobody is going to part me from it again.'
'We can do this, can't we?' said Hirad, believing for the first time.
'Course we can,' said Denser, his face splitting into a grin. 'We're The Raven!'
Their laughter echoed out across the open sea.
Chapter 15.
Yasal-Naik circled Sha-Kaan very slowly, eyes following the Great Kaan as he spun on his tail, displaying his belly scales at all times. A gesture of respect, of peace and of submission. Sha-Kaan bit down hard on his pride, knowing that to gain audience with this most aggressive of brood fathers was more than he had genuinely believed he would achieve. To jeopardise that with a petulant display of superiority now would be truly calamitous folly. They both knew Sha-Kaan was the stronger dragon. This was not the time to demonstrate it.
The five young Naik circled nearby, keeping watch on the open skies, searching for the Kaan attack that would never come.
'You have killed one of my brood,' said Yasal-Naik. 'That alone is enough to see you taken from the skies with flames as your final companion.'
'The whelp attacked me despite my attitude and bearing. I had no choice but to defend myself.'
'And your intrusion into my skies is punishable equally severely.'
'Then carry out your sentence, Yasal. My only regret is that I would not live to see you confront your blindness.'
The Naik brood father continued to circle, aware of Sha-Kaan's discomfort.
'It is an action I can take at will, is it not?'
Sha-Kaan rumbled deep in his huge chest. 'Then hear me, since you have nothing to lose. Know why it is I have come here alone to speak with you.'
Yasal ceased his circling finally, clicking the back of his tongue. The rattling echoed in his cheeks. Sha-Kaan flicked his wings in acknowledgement, returning to horizontal flight.
'Let us fly, Great Kaan,' said Yasal. 'You have my attention.'
'I am grateful to you.' Sha-Kaan took up station beside Yasal and followed him in a lazy glide. 'Your decision demonstrates maturity.'
'From you that is a compliment,' said Yasal. 'But don't mistake maturity for conciliation. There is none.'
'Just listen to me,' said Sha-Kaan. 'I am tired of your threats.'
The two dragons' eyes met across the narrow gulf between them. Yasal's burned with an anger Sha-Kaan recognised in himself as a younger dragon.
'Speak.'
'Yasal, I am not here to surrender, I am not here to challenge you. I have travelled alone as a demonstration of my veracity. You may always have hated the Kaan and despised me in particular. That is natural. All broods desire dominion and one day we will assuredly return to that state.'
' "One day"? What is wrong with today?'
'Because today that battle is rendered pointless.'
'One of my escort mentioned something similar. Explain.'
'The Arakhe have taken Balaia,' said Sha-Kaan.
'Surely a cause for celebration.'
'You know what that means.'