Blackthorne put an arm around his shoulder and began to lead him back to the rest of The Raven who were standing or sitting in a group, drinks in hands, looking back at the demons clustered outside the ColdRooms.
'Later, Hirad. First of all, you should rest. We'll talk later over food and wine and you can tell me what by all the Gods falling you are doing here. But let me tell you this one thing. However much a wolf Thraun is, his eyes are still human. I recognised him straight away and where he goes, The Raven go.'
'My Lord!' A young man ran towards them from the periphery.
'Luke,' said Blackthorne. 'Meet The Raven.'
Luke stood confused for a moment before nodding at them all. 'I'm glad you're here. Please excuse me, though.' He paused and Hirad could see the conflict in his face. He was trying not to be overawed and mixed with it was the reason he stood in front of the Baron in the first place.
'Tell you what, Luke, join us at dinner. Now, what is it, you look flushed.'
'It's him, my Lord. He wants to speak with you.'
Baron Blackthorne nodded. 'As expected but perhaps rather sooner than ideal.' He took in The Raven. 'You should come with me.'
'To see who?'
'Head demon of hereabouts. We call him Fidget.' He smiled enigmatically.
Erienne spoke for them all. 'Why, and what is his real name?'
'Come and see.'
Blackthorne strolled across the open space towards the periphery for all the world as if it was a lazy afternoon and he had not a care in the world. The Raven followed him, the elves in close attendance.
'I had this area cleared of buildings to give us a sight zone all around the castle. The demons own everything beyond it and they know where our ColdRooms start. We understand each other. We're still thinking of building a stockade, a physical barrier would be good for morale, but raw materials are hard to come by.'
'It would make the place almost comfortable,' said Hirad.
Blackthorne shot him a dark glance. 'Never that, Hirad.'
Mages and soldiers were grouped near an area of the perimeter, facing several dozen demons. They moved aside as Blackthorne and his retinue approached. Standing with wings furled in front of them was a demon of better than eight feet in height and jet black in colour but with veins pulsing blue across his skin. His face was human-shaped but his features were anything but. He had a flat lipless slit that was his mouth, above which a single dark oval was presumably his nose. He appeared to have no ears at all and his eyes were huge, yellow orbs covering much of his forehead. His hands ended in long-boned fingers which clicked incessantly.
'Ugly bastard, isn't he?' said Hirad.
'I'm sure he feels the same way about you,' said Denser.
'Does he really do that all the time?' asked Erienne.
'Hence the name,' said Blackthorne. He strode up to the perimeter, standing only two paces from his enemy. 'What do you want, Fidget?'
'I am Ferouc,' stated the demon looking square at The Raven, fingers increasing their speed temporarily.
'Of course, how forgetful of me,' said Blackthorne. 'What do you want, Fidget?'
'You harbour that which we want and that which we own,' said Ferouc, his voice whining, sibilant through lips unused to framing human words.
'You own nothing in this world. Theft does not denote ownership. '
'Those behind you took six who are ours,' said Ferouc. 'They will be returned or others will suffer.'
'Come in and get them,' said Hirad.
'Quiet,' snapped The Unknown.
'Brave out there, aren't you?' said Hirad, feeling his anger rising. He took a pace forward and began to unsheathe his sword. 'Come on in, let's see how big you are.'
Blackthorne waved him back. 'As you will gather, we will do no such thing.'
Ferouc looked past Blackthorne. 'Raven,' he hissed. 'In my trap now.'
'Is that how you see it?' Blackthorne raised his eyebrows and idly scratched at an ear. 'We rather think that this is a place you are unable to breach. A place that strengthens every day.'
Ferouc's laugh, if such it was, resembled the rumbling of phlegm. 'We wait. We grow. You weaken. Your soul will be mine, Blackthorne.'
'Is there anything more you wish to say?' asked Blackthorne. 'I'm a busy man.'
'Return the six to me. Give me The Raven. You will lose six of your fellows for each of those who stays in your shell.'
Blackthorne shook his head. 'The Raven do what they will and are not under my control. Something you would do well to remember. And of those in your thrall, to me they are already dead. Nothing you can do to them affects my heart.'
Blackthorne turned smartly away and it wasn't until Ferouc couldn't see his eyes that they filled with tears.
Chapter 19.
Tessaya had had a great deal of time to think since his retreat from Xetesk two years before. In rotation, he had released his warriors to return to the Heartlands on leave and he had allowed himself similar time. He had returned to a land where old tribal tensions had resurfaced in those that had been left behind. And his lack of a victory had done nothing to reaffirm his influence and standing.
Tribal conflict had robbed him of warriors and more than one attempt had been made on his life during his times away from the East. That these attempts had failed reminded him whom the Spirits had chosen to lead the Wesmen to dominion over Balaia.
And so he had been able to keep his counsel during the upheaval and wait for the blood to cool and the tempers of the enraged to ebb. It had not always been easy for his people to be branded cowards in the face of provocation. But he had their unflinching loyalty after so many years of provident rule and he rewarded it again. Once the tribal struggles had burned themselves to mere sparking embers, the Paleon remained the strongest tribe in the Heartlands.
Once again the tribal lords had been driven to kneel to him. Those who had backed the opposition to him had been banished to that place where the spirit would never find rest.
With the Heartlands at relative peace and with those he trusted most ruling the tribes he most feared, he could turn his mind once again to conquest of the East. And for the first time he wondered if it would be truly possible. Mages he could wear down. Mere men he could defeat by force of arms and courage. But he had no weapon against the demons.
Worse, if they defeated the eastern mages, they could eventually threaten him and his people. It was a curious paradox. On the one side, he had travelled back from the mage lands knowing that the rule of magic on Balaia was finally at an end. Yet on the other, he had confronted an adversary of which the Spirits themselves were scared. He had no reason to suspect that they would attempt to invade the Heartlands but there was trouble among the dead and he had no way to calm it.
Tessaya was sitting outside his farmhouse under a porch of woven thatch that kept away the heat of the sun as it climbed into early afternoon. It had been hot this late spring and they had been concerned about the survival of their main crop. It had been fortunate that hostilities among the tribes had concluded with enough time to see irrigation organised, the crops saved and starvation averted.
Around him, his small village was alive. A hundred farmsteads grouped in concentric circles with his at their hub. Young animals ran free in their paddocks, wheat, corn and potato crops burgeoned and swayed in the cooling breeze. Children laughed, men and women put their backs to their work.
From the small stone temple that was the spiritual centre of every Wesmen settlement, Tessaya watched his ancient Shaman, Arnoan, bustle towards him. Across the dirt road that separated their buildings he came. Tessaya called his wife and asked for more pressed fruit and spice juice. The old man would be out of breath at the rate he approached.
Arnoan was red in the face by the time he had crossed the short distance. Tessaya pulled up a chair for him and helped him up the few steps onto his porch.
'Sit, sit before you fall,' he said.
Arnoan, dressed in the heavy cream robes of his office despite the weather, waved him back to his own seat.
'It is not me you have to be concerned about, Tessaya.'
He was the only man whom Tessaya allowed to use his name without prefix, and then only in private.
'You have received wisdom, my Shaman?' He handed Arnoan the cup of juice his wife had poured. The Shaman gulped at it gratefully. The remaining wisps of his pure white hair blew about his head and the spotted skin on his face lightened visibly as he cooled. He regarded Tessaya with those sunken grey eyes that the Wesmen lord had long thought were years past death.
'How long ago was it? That the dragons came from the stain in the sky and you told me you had no need of spirits?'
Tessaya chuckled. 'You have a long memory, old man.'
'And I know how the world turns, Tessaya. And the problems you face are far more severe than any you have faced thus far.'
Tessaya raised his eyebrows. 'Really? How so?'
'Tell me. Do you truly believe in the strength of the Spirits?'
'They have influence over the hearts and minds of the Wesmen,' he conceded. 'They are wise and have helped us in difficult times past.'
'And if they were no longer there, my Lord, what then?'
'Then we would have to seek our path in this world without the guidance of our dead,' said Tessaya after a pause.
'No, Tessaya. Because there would be no path for us. The demons would take it from us.'
Tessaya laughed but he felt a moment's anxiety. 'They cannot touch us. The Easterners are weak and their souls are taken easily. Ours not so.'
Arnoan leaned forward and gripped Tessaya's arm hard. 'We only resist because the Spirits protect us, you know that.'
'And they always will.' Tessaya looked down at Arnoan's hand. The Shaman did not relax his hold.
'Should the demons defeat the East, they can strike west or south without opposition. They desire passage to the Spirit world from this one.'
'How?'
'That I don't know but the Spirits believe they will find it here. And should they succeed we are all forfeit to them on a whim.'
Tessaya shook his head. 'This is madness. How can the demons threaten the dead? The heat has upset your reason.'
'Perhaps it has, Tessaya.' Arnoan let go his grip and fell back into his chair. The weave creaked. 'After all, I am just an old man overdue to join them, am I not?'
'Maybe you are. I would not be tempted to think so if you made sense.'
'I can do no more than issue the warning that I have been given. The contact is never transparent, Tessaya, you know that.'
Tessaya threw up his hands. 'But isn't it part of the Shaman's art to decipher the jumble they receive?'
'And it is a miracle we understand as much as we do.'
'Tell me what it is you must.'
'You must prepare, Lord Tessaya. A battle is coming and help will appear from an unbidden angle.'
'Is that it?' Tessaya pushed a hand through his hair.
'The Spirits are in ferment, Tessaya. They fear the invaders and so should you. They have to be repelled. All I know is that you will not be alone in your struggle.'
During the night that followed, Tessaya slept little. His mind was plagued by visions he could not begin to understand. He did not know whether it was the Spirits who talked to him or if it was his own mind churning over Arnoan's words. When morning came, he could not deny that the Shaman had shaken him, but he had no answers.
He went to the temple to pray before returning to the East and Xetesk.
It was a sight that no dragon had ever thought to see. Not Skoor, Veret, Gost, or Stara. And least of all Kaan or Naik. A sight that would have fired the breath of the ancients. But so it happened and word of mouth did so much more than their entreaties ever could.
Sha-Kaan and Yasal-Naik, flying wing to wing. Allied if not friends. Carrying a simple message. A plea.
The Great Kaan's feelings were mixed. The cessation of hostilities between the two mightiest broods of Beshara was a triumph but left him deeply dissatisfied in spirit. He knew Yasal would be feeling the same. Both would have preferred the other's capitulation and extinction. So it was with warring broods.
Yet linked to his deep-seated unease, Sha-Kaan could not shift the feeling that he had embarked on a task of soaring magnitude. A task that would secure, if it was successful, the survival of dragons. Which broods would prosper beyond that survival, he could not begin to guess.
'Does it not concern you, Sha-Kaan, that broods might pledge their support then not deliver it when the time came? It would leave such broods with an overwhelming advantage in Beshara.'
Sha-Kaan regarded Yasal with his left eye. The pair were flying south across the great ocean, the aquatic Brood Veret their destination. For this meeting they had no need of escort and flew unaccompanied in the upper thermals.
'It is something I had assumed you would consider, Yasal,' he said, not unkindly. 'Indeed I would have been disappointed if you had not. But it is exactly that which we must counter in the minds of the brood leaders.'
'Might they not also consider this an elaborate ruse on our part to gain dominion?'
'Yasal, if you still harbour such issues yourself, then speak them openly, not from behind another's mouth.'
Yasal grumbled in his throat. 'Not all of my brood believe you. None of them trust you even as far as I have chosen to do for now. How will you . . . we, answer them?'
Sha-Kaan sighed. 'It is simple. I will lead by example and so will you. All but those who must remain in my Broodlands will fly with me. There will be no defence because there is no point. My brood will go first to the battle. If others choose not to follow but remain to destroy my home then they will be killing themselves for the briefest satisfaction. That is my belief and I back it with the lives of all those I rule. This is not a gamble. If we are not together, we will all perish.'
Yasal-Naik said nothing but Sha-Kaan caught the change of scent on the breeze and saw the deferential tip of his wings.
'I need you by me, Yasal-Naik.'
'I will be there, Great Kaan.'
Below them, the bass-throated calls of the Veret floated up to them and they began their descent towards the ocean.
By the time The Raven were called to dinner, Blackthorne had regained his composure. They sat around one end of the grand banqueting table in the central hall of the castle to eat. The tapestries still depicted glorious deeds past; the arches still flew to balconied heights and the fires roared in nearby grates to ease the chill of evening. But in every other way, this was most unlike the celebration of a meeting of old friends.
They could not spare the candles for anything more than light by which to eat. The kitchen duty staff brought through the meagre platters themselves; and the quiet of the castle told them everything about the paucity of people Blackthorne had at his disposal.