The merest hints of light appeared in the eyes of the Garonin. A transitory tightening of their faces.
'People come to you. Trust you,' said one. 'Your living . . . and your dead.'
'How do you know that?'
'We see all that passes through this place.'
'What?'
But they would not elucidate.
'You will tell your people to lay down their arms and die with dignity.'
The tone was more strident now.
'I will do no such thing. I don't even understand why you want us dead. If it is the mana you want, take it. But leave us alive. We know where you are headed. The Hearts of our colleges are thick with mana. Why must we die for you to take them?'
'Every soul possesses verrian. We will take what we must.'
'Then you must fight for it,' said Sol. ' We will not surrender and become extinct to satisfy your desire for simplicity.'
'Then do it knowing an acquiescent soul holds more verrian than one in torment. That your chosen way of death can help others to live, to win their battles.'
Sol stared at them open-mouthed.
'You have one fucked-up morality, my enemy.'
'We will take what we must.'
'And you will pay for it in your blood every step of the way.'
'Destruction in agony, death in peace. It is your choice.'
Again the flashing in the eyes, the hardness of tone. But this time Sol was ready for it. He jabbed a finger into the chest of the centre Garonin, feeling great solidity beneath the robe.
'You have made a huge mistake bringing me here. You reveal your fears and you attempt desperate, ridiculous bargains to cover for them. No deal. No surrender. I repeat: your blood on our lands every step of the way. Unless you guarantee the lives of every man and elf in my world. What is it to be?'
'We do not need to make bargains with the weak.'
'Then our business is concluded. And now I will return to my people. Those I love and will protect with every mote of my strength.'
'No. You will not.'
'You think you can stop me? Then you underestimate just how quickly I learn and what I understand about this place.'
'You cannot hope to go against our wishes, human. You have neither the wit nor the means.'
The three of them stared at him and he heard that sound again, water over pebbles. Laughter. Sol's head cleared and he felt a satisfying coolness in his body. Releasing himself from the chair had been merely the first step. He held his hands in front of him, imagined his old two-handed blade, its weight, its every nick, its pommel and grip. And there it was in his grasp, as real as the breath in his lungs. Sol was moving before the Garonin had registered their surprise. The blade moved easily, as if wielded by his younger self.
Sol punched the blade straight forward, piercing the middle enemy's stomach. He dragged it clear and swung it up and left, catching the second Garonin's right shoulder and hurling him from his feet. Sol squared up to the third, in whose hands a weapon now lay. But there was fear in his face and a tremble in his arms. Sol brought his blade back to a cocked position under his chin and buried it in his enemy's chest.
Sol stood over the man as his blood soaked into the ground, leaving no trace. They locked eyes.
'Two things. One, I have learned enough to defeat you here. Second, it is rude to laugh.' He let his blade go and it had disappeared before it hit the ground. He felt terribly tired. 'And now I will go home.'
Sol pictured Balaia. He pictured The Raven's Rest and he pictured the empty place beside Diera's body in their bed.
And the next thing he knew was Diera screaming into his face where he lay.
Sol grabbed her arms and dragged her close to him. She was incoherent, a quaking shuddering through her body. Her face was wild, terrified. He tried to calm her but his own terror was beginning to bite. Delayed, kept under control while he had been gone from Balaia but now given licence.
'Diera. Stop. Stop. Please.'
Sol was choking up. His throat was tight and the tears were welling in his eyes. Diera's fists were balled and she was thumping them into his chest. He was still dressed in the bloodstained clothes he had been wearing on the battlefield. Even down to his boots.
'How can you be here!' she screamed. 'How can you just appear like that?'
The dark was complete. It was night in Xetesk. Outside, there was quiet. In The Raven's Rest peace was shattered. Sol could hear his boys crying, frightened by the explosion of noise from their mother. One of them was already banging on the door to the bedroom.
'It's all right, boys,' said Sol. 'Go back to bed. Just nightmares.'
'Of course it's not bloody all right,' Diera shouted into his face. 'Their father has been missing for three days. Dead for all we knew. And then you appear in the blink of a cat's eyes. They lost their father and I my husband. How can you be here?'
Sol pushed her away, held her at arm's length.
'Three days?'
Diera sagged in his arms. The door to their bedroom opened and in the gloom he could make out both Jonas and young Hirad, standing fearful in the frame. Hirad was crying and clutching a small soft toy to his mouth.
'When did you get back?' asked Jonas.
'Just now,' said Sol quietly. 'Look, I'll come to see you in a little while, all right?'
'Why is mother shouting?' asked Hirad, mumbling through the toy.
'I'm sorry, darling,' said Diera. 'Your father gave me a shock. It's nothing. Go back to bed. We'll see you before you know it.'
The two boys hesitated. Diera pulled her arms from Sol's grip and went to them, hugging both of them to her.
'Everything's all right, I promise.'
'But my friends say an enemy is coming. That we'll have to run and that there are dead people everywhere and they are helping the enemy,' said Jonas.
'That is a lie,' said Sol sharply. 'You tell your friends in the morning that the dead are here to help us. I know they scare you but they mean you no harm. We will keep you safe. Nothing will happen to you. I will not let it.'
'See?' said Diera brightly. 'Your father will protect you. Now run along. We'll come and tuck you in. Go on now.'
She shooed them away and closed the door, turning an angry, pale face on Sol.
'Tell me it is going to get better. Explain to me what I do with our children. Make me understand what just happened. This is too much for me, Sol. You know that, don't you?'
Sol nodded. 'Just tell me one thing. Did anyone say how far the enemy are from Xetesk right now?'
'They are not heading this way at all at present, so Denser said when relating your heroics. Stupid old man that you are. If and when they turn, we will have four days, maybe five. How is your hip, anyway? '
'A little stiff.' Sol smiled.
Diera did not respond in kind. She came and sat on the side of the bed. She gestured at him, his clothes, and she shook her head.
'Where have you been?'
Sol swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit next to her and brushed dust and dirt from the sheet. The blood of the Garonin was still wet on his clothes and would stain.
'Sorry about that.'
Diera shrugged. 'Doesn't really matter now, does it?'
'I suppose not.' Sol leaned forward. 'I don't know where they took me. The enemy, that is. I hope Denser and the college can help me with that. Somewhere beyond our dimension . . . any dimension come to that. But there was familiarity there that I can't explain.'
'Why didn't they just kill you?'
'They wanted to make me agree to passive genocide, if you can believe it. But I made them see that we would fight them to the last man.'
Diera smiled at last. 'The mighty King Sol. Still fighting the good fight though this enemy is by all accounts too powerful to defeat even if we had a dozen colleges and a million soldiers.'
'Who told you that?'
'Hirad. Old Hirad, that is.'
'Survived, did he? That's good.' Sol felt a little warmth for the first time since he had returned. 'And you believe him to be the soul of Hirad in another body now, do you?'
The nod was fractional. 'The weight of evidence suggests that he might be telling the truth. His shadow completely freaks me out. Why does that happen?'
'Because the soul remembers the body it once inhabited, I suppose. It just goes to show that whatever skin you're in, you're still the same.'
Diera chuckled. 'And you can stop your lectures on the nature of man right there. And how did the enemy respond?'
'Garonin, that's what they call themselves. They didn't believe me. Showing them resulted in the three of them dying.'
'Back to the old methods of negotiation, is it?'
'You have been my wife for too long. Is my face really that revealing?' Sol shook his head. 'They made me angry. Wanted to stop me getting back to you. I can't have that, can I?'
Diera stroked his face. 'You never could. Lucky for me you always make it, isn't it?'
'I tell you one thing though. They mean to drain us of every drop of mana we possess and they will not stop until they get it. They are too powerful here on Balaia. We can't turn them away forever. And that means for you, for ordinary Xeteskians, it is time to leave.'
'And go where? If they are determined to kill us all, then nowhere is safe.'
'We'll find an escape,' said Sol. 'Things the Garonin said to me, mistakes they made. This isn't over, not by a long way. The dead will help us.'
Diera threw her arms around his neck and they clutched each other tight.
'Why does it always have to be you?' she said, her face buried in his shoulder.
'I'm just lucky, I suppose.'
She broke away and punched his arm. 'Bastard. What happens now?'
'Well, we get a few hours more sleep. Then I go to the Mount and we work out how to turn the Garonin away once more and where to run in the time that gives us. As for you, my love, I mean what I say. Take the boys. Take anyone else who believes enough to go with you. Head west. Find Tessaya. He knows you. The Wesmen will guard you until I get to you again.'
Diera nodded and sighed. 'All right. But you know Jonas is already talking about Beshara. He's not stupid. If we have to run, why not to a place where dragons will guard us?'
Sol blinked. Beshara. Realm of the dragons and inextricably linked to Balaia by the mental connections between Kaan brood dragons and selected human mages. And Jonas was a Dragonene. The Dragonene of Sha-Kaan, leader of his brood.
'How can I have been so stupid?'
Chapter 16.
Sha-Kaan soared back into the clear blue heavens above Beshara and looked down at the devastation below. A line of seven vydospheres travelled the plains of Dormar, driving towards the steaming forests of Teras. His forests. Home of the Kaan.
The vydospheres spanned a huge swathe of the once-beautiful plains. Flush with Flamegrass, dense with life and the dwellings of the Vestare, human servants of the Kaan and all of Beshara's multiple broods of dragon. The war-torn world had known peace for many cycles and now this threatened to destroy all that had been built.
Behind the vydospheres, Dormar was a wasteland, worse than the ancient blasted lands of the Keol. The Garonin had already visited destruction upon the homelands of the Naik, the Skoor and even the ocean-going Veret. Now, closing on the lands of the largest brood, they were meeting significant resistance. Sha-Kaan could still see the wilderness expanding, the fires burning, spreading and consuming on a wider and wider arc.
Away to the south, the smoking ruins of an eighth vydosphere littered the ground, sparking fire here and there as it slowly disappeared. From the funnels of the others belched smoke and ash while above them the ground was occasionally obscured by the clouds formed as mana was burned for collection.
Sha-Kaan roared his flight to him. Thirty dragons, climbing hard into the sky, beyond the range of the tracers of white fire and the looping, smoking explosive projectiles. The Garonin had flooded the plain with men and weapons. They crushed Flamegrass underfoot, powdered the homes of the Vestare in their path and rendered all that was living to pale dust.
Yet they were still vulnerable. Six flights of dragons were in the air above them, awaiting the order to strike. Others from allied broods were on the way. The sky was filling with the massive shapes of dragons and the deafening noise of their calls and barks.
Sha-Kaan twisted his long, slender neck to check the damage to his one-hundred-and-twenty-foot-long body. Russet gold scales, some warped with age, others blistered by the heat of enemy weapons. Those blackened by the lick of dragon fire were trophies earned in forgotten conflicts.
He snapped his wings to their fullest width and executed a long, graceful turn, bringing him round behind the centre of the Garonin advance.
'Hold your shape. Breathe only on my command. Do not break, do not falter. Escape at best speed and angle.' Sha-Kaan's pulsed orders were greeted with thoughts of acknowledgment, determination and assurances of victory. 'Kaan. Dive.'
Sha-Kaan's bark was a shattering cry that echoed over the clanking, thundering noise of the Garonin invaders and their machines. In their harnesses, the dim-witted hanfeer tossed their heads and shuddered. The dragons dived. Wings tucked in tight, necks stretched out, the wind whistling over the mounds of their bodies. Their tails stabilised their lightning descent.
Sha-Kaan led them screaming towards the ruined plains. He snapped his wings out to brake and turn barely a hundred yards from the ground. He swept up to the horizontal, dipped even closer to the dust, and forged in. Garonin weapons were trained. They fired. A hundred teardrop streams of white light rattled out.
Heat blossomed on Sha-Kaan's body. Scales were burned and ripped from his belly, from his back and flanks. To his left, a Kaan was struck square in the muzzle. The dragon roared agony. The head, engulfed in fire, was torn apart and the body dropped to the ground to impact the dust and roll over and over. Sha-Kaan ignored the pain in his body and the tears in his wings as fire drops clipped them. He urged his dragons to hold and they did. Up and to the right another was caught in a crossfire of six weapons. The vast body exploded under the pressure of the impacts. Flesh filled the sky, knocked dragons aside. A wing spiralled down, folding in on itself and colliding with another Kaan below it. The dragon lost his bearings and, temporarily blinded, ploughed into the plains.