Dragon's Rise

by Lou Hoffmann

  “What strange things, exactly?” Thurlock asked.

  “Well, over to the west, coming down into the valley over that rise, there”—he pointed—“some giants… maybe they were Ehstenners? I always thought it was a myth that people grew that big, but my father said…. Sorry, getting off track. The giants are pulling sledges with piles of dead bodies on them. They go down into the valley, and even though I couldn’t see where they went, I’m pretty sure they’d come out at the far east end, behind where the cliff face juts out and then curves away—just beyond the biggest black… thing… shadow. You can’t see it from here, but there’s some even stranger-looking people over there, and they’ve got these… machines, I guess you’d call them… and there are… like paddocks, but with children and some adults in them, looking all weak and groggy. And the piles of dead bodies? I think that’s where the dead… but not dead… you know what I mean. I think that’s where they’re coming from.”

  Everyone, Thurlock included, stared, slack-jawed and narrow-eyed, as if trying to fit what Rio said into a world that made sense. But it did make sense to Luccan. It fit perfectly into the world his mother had shown him, and this world where he’d seen children imprisoned in dark tunnels, and that other world the Echo had shown him—sad, ruined Terrathia.

  “Thurlock,” Rio said, his voice low and rough as if it hurt him to speak these particular words. “I think… I think that if our side is killing people where the other battle is happening, we have to stop it. And if some people die on either side, we need to keep all the bodies.”

  “Luccan,” Thurlock said. “Tell Han.”

  EIGHT OF the soldiers who had come up to Luccan and Thurlock’s camp with Rio and the others carried with them four giant crossbows, each in two pieces. On Thurlock’s orders, they now set to the task of positioning the simple but powerful machines on a lip of rock about thirty feet downslope, toward the west side, almost directly under the ancient grove. A trickle of water from the spring had cut a narrow but traversable path down to it, and Lucky watched their slow and careful progress down it, keeping a Wish in his heart for their safety. He looked to his left and saw that Thurlock watched too, holding his staff at the ready. He remembered Thurlock keeping him from falling off Sherah’s back, and he hoped he could do the same to keep them firmly on the mountain path. Eventually, they made it safely and Lucky breathed, then let his gaze wander.

  Once again, zombies shambled up the slope, this time cutting crosswise to climb the slightly gentler slope that led to where the crossbows were mounted. Per their orders, the eight soldiers—arbalests—in charge of the crossbows trained their sights on a short space where the Ehstenners emerged from the mountains in the southwest and crossed in the open with their heavy loads before disappearing behind rocks and then, apparently, into the shadows. Thurlock had asked them to time their shots to land bolts in the path of the Ehstenners without killing them—in concordance with the new “no killing” policy. An onslaught of giant zombies would do them no good at all. From above, Lucky couldn’t see the arbalists or their target, but he could see the zombies coming for them. He decided to do something about them.

  He steeled himself against the disgust he felt, having to maim human bodies—even already dead—and wielded Ciarrah’s light like a weed eater, cutting down the first wave of zombies all in a row.

  This is just not normal. The habitual thought cropped up even though Lucky didn’t really believe in “normal” anymore. He did think perhaps it was a bit beyond just not normal. Maybe he should be more horrified than he was. Maybe he was just a little bit in shock. Because this is crazy.

  Immediately after that thought passed through Lucky’s mind, the whole battlefield got a hundred times crazier.

  First, it went dark.

  Not like “all the lights went out” dark, like it turned from late morning to night in the blink of an eye. Stars shone above, twinkling through holes in a cover of billowy clouds, their light eerily magenta and blue. If the walking dead had appeared horrific before, they looked even worse now, and the ground seemed to come alive with dark shapes.

  Lucky heard a deep voice behind him, loud but not shouting, and he turned to see Thurlock standing atop the highest point of the ridge’s summit. His left hand was open, palm toward the Valley of the Hand, making a repeated motion like a child gathering jacks in a schoolyard game. In his right hand, Thurlock lifted his staff high, the point stabbing toward the heavens. His chant was clear-voiced and deliberate—and absolutely not understandable to Lucky. As he watched, though, he began to understand. He’s gathering the light.

  The golden serpents Thurlock had laid down upon the valley floor, “preparing the ground,” answered his call now, and began to flow toward him, brightening as they came. They gathered on the ledge, lighting up the ground like amber footlights on a stage, and then one by one in a neat row climbed up over Thurlock, the length of his arm, and up the rune-carved staff until it burned, fierce and hot, from pommel to tip.

  “Relumine!”

  Thurlock’s shouted command echoed across the valley in waves and the sky blossomed with golden flame. Not as if day had returned, but rather a canopy of light hung beneath the canopy of darkness, a brilliantly lit ceiling over the valley, the Hand, the foothills, and the ridge where they stood. Lucky was so struck with wonder at the sight that for a suspended moment he forgot the battle. Then Thurlock called his name.

  “Luccan,” he said. “Look there!”

  Lucky followed Thurlock’s pointing forefinger and saw something that came close to scaring the pee out of him. Earthborns—a wave of them plowing through the Sunlands troops on the ground, their guns obscenely loud and unquestioningly deadly. Lucky turned to where Rio and the other archers lined the promontory, and saw them sending arrows out like steady rain. Some of the Earthborns fell. A few were struck and stumbled but plodded on, obeying the commands of whatever magic held them enthralled. When they came upon zombies in their path, they shoved them ahead like extra shields.

  Again, it seemed to Lucky that nothing about this could be real. I’ve fallen back in time, back into the world of the undreams. If I look around, I’ll see my mother trying to take me.

  But then his eye was caught by small explosions of stone and sand on the cliff just below the archers. Bullets—almost able to reach the archers. Per Thurlock’s previous orders, the Sunlands arrows were aimed to disable rather than kill, but the strategy wasn’t working well. Sometimes, they unavoidably killed anyway. Other times it didn’t matter how badly hurt the enemy was, it didn’t stop them. When the Earthborns did come upon the dead—enemy or Sunlands—they tossed the body behind them to the next soldier, who did the same, and so on. It reminded Lucky of the bucket line he’d stood in fighting the fire, and it was at least as efficient. Soon, bodies were piled high, ready for their second use as zombies.

  The archers remained protected by Thurlock’s magical shield, which was maintained now by Mayli and her singing sisters. Lucky was grateful for that, but he worried it might be weakening, what with Thurlock tending to other things, time’s passing wearing it thin, and the beating against it of ammunition and opposing spells. The faces of the four young women doing their best to keep the shield whole and strong shone with the sweat of effort. The archers were in danger, and that meant….

  Rio!

  Lucky, he lectured himself. Stop standing around, wondering and worrying. This is no dream. Fight now. Fight like Rio’s life depends on it—because it might!

  Just then, a bullet found an archer standing a few feet away from Rio. Lucky willed Rio to drop to the ground behind the lip of rock in front of him, but instead Rio turned to him and locked eyes. He was frightened, Lucky knew that, but he smiled at Lucky—an encouragement—and then coolly nocked an arrow, two more lined up between his fingers for quick follow-up.

  Captain Hahris, who had been surveying the battlefield with a more professional eye a few feet away, jumped suddenly into Lucky, knocking him to the ground ju
st as some sort of darkly glowing missile flew overhead, right about where Lucky’s face would have been.

  Thurlock, crouched nearby, said, “Luccan. Call your uncle. We need him and whatever help he can bring. Now.”

  Chapter Thirty: Han’s War

  HAN HATED war, hated killing. Yet, like every other professional warrior, when he rode into wild battle, the cocktail of his own strength, prowess, and mortality intoxicated him. He sat light in the saddle, as if Sim’s hooves barely skimmed the ground and swung Chiell Shan almost blindly, somehow retaining enough presence of mind to cut down only the enemy. Some died at his hand, but some only fell, and he did not slow his progress across the field to finish them. It wasn’t until he broke through the other side and found himself alone, surrounded by but not awash in a sea of death, pain, and fear, that he regained clear vision and the ability to process what he saw.

  When he had discussed his plans with Thurlock and his fellow officers, they’d worried that the enemy would include the wraiths they’d faced at Hoenholm. Han had argued that the enemy would use live soldiers for the attack on the encampment and save their living dead for the battle at the Hand. He’d stocked his mobile armory with magical weapons, and brought soldiers trained in their use as well as some with magical abilities, but as he’d expected there was no need to break them out. They fought an enemy of flesh and blood. Magic, in a turbulent fight such as this, could easily wreak havoc on allies as well as enemies, and physical combat was as effective—usually more deadly—against living opponents.

  Han’s forces looked to be well on the way to victory, but some odd things were happening on the field, and Han needed to make sense of them if he wanted to maintain the advantage.

  Many of the enemy troops behaved strangely, fighting hard as if driven by great need, but they didn’t seem to care if they lived or died. They bore no grim, determined expression. They didn’t move out of the path of a horse’s hooves, or dodge a blow from a sword. They didn’t cry out in alarm or pain or excitement. And when they were cut or took an arrow or bolt, neither their expression nor their actions changed. As he watched, one young man who bore the look and wore the clothes common in West Haven, lost his sword arm to a blow from a passing Mounted Guard, but he kept swinging the severed arm from the shoulder as he bled out in great spurts.

  Han felt a wave of nausea when it dawned on him what he was seeing—thralls. People so thoroughly ensorcelled even the will to live could not break through the commands of dark magic. He turned his head and spat.

  Bringing his mind back to the demands of battle, he scanned the slope to the south—the foot of the North Face. As they’d expected, Earthborns with rifles and assault weapons worked the slope. Some were sniping into the confused battle, but clearly it was hard for them to get a shot. Han was thankful for his own position behind a raised mound that was presently the scene of multiple troops from each side battling it out in what almost seemed a free-for-all. Some of the Earthborn snipers had been sniped in return by the deadly blow darts and stone slings of the Droghona warriors who’d taken positions higher up the slope, and now their bodies hung across the steep drop, snagged on rocks or broken brush, served up like meals for vultures. Or condors….

  Not now. Think about Henry later.

  Once again when he thought of Henry, he felt an echo from somewhere inside himself. If he’d had time to think about it, he’d have been able to convince himself the shifter he was ever more desperately in love with was right next to him. But a scream from somewhere deep in the melee brought him back to his duty, and he redirected his attention. A pair of clumsily armed Earthborns wearing vests of lightweight Kevlar bent over what looked like a heap of rags, though Han knew better. A young soldier with bloody hands and no weapon was pounding on their backs and trying to push them away. The Earthborns shoved at him, and then one stepped back coolly and raised his weapon toward the young soldier.

  The Sunlands’ best weaponsmith had crafted Han’s arrow points from sun-metal with magic at the forge. They sported four narrow, razor-sharp blades converging at the point. The Earthborns’ “bulletproof” textile stood no chance against them.

  Han sheathed Chiell Shan, nocked an arrow and drew his bowstring in an instant, almost in one swift motion. His arrow took the threatening Earthborn in the center of his chest at a slight angle, slicing through the man’s heart at the right atrium and then severing important vessels, including most probably the aorta. He hit the ground before true death, but no medicine in the universe could have healed him.

  Han urged Sim forward toward the young soldier even as the second Earthborn of the pair began to hurriedly pile his fallen comrade on the already existing heap of bodies. The young Sunlandian was back at it, harassing the Earthborn, yelling at him, and finally that enemy too stepped back and lifted his weapon. Han let Simarrohn have her head to fight her way through the fray with flailing hooves and snapping teeth as he took up his bow. No time to truly aim—Sim was a moving platform—but Han’s skill with his bow was nearly on the level of instinct.

  Look. Draw. Fire.

  As the man fell, Han once again pushed back a surge of self-loathing. Not now, Han. He’d lament the course of his life that made him a warrior and a killer later. Now he directed Sim toward the young man with the bloody hands, who’d fallen atop the pile of corpses, weeping. Sim broke free of what was blocking her, and Han swooped in, gathered the young soldier onto the front of his saddle, and continued through the melee to the barricades of sandbags, rocks, and furniture outside the camp tents.

  “Make way,” he shouted at the tired-looking healers and soldiers on the other side of the trench, and he held tight to the sobbing young soldier in his arms as Sim sailed over the barricade.

  The injured man looked up into his eyes as he was being laid on a pallet to wait his turn for a healer’s care.

  Han said, “It will be all right, son. You did well. Rest now.”

  The young man’s eyes closed, and Han turned Sim back toward the battle, fervently hoping the soldier wasn’t about to die.

  The battle raged on, surging first south, then north, west, then east, turbulent centers erupting and pulling in every nearby combatant. Han moved throughout the battlefield, drawing Chiell Shan and fighting down an attack, loosing arrows when he had a shot, riding down a blindly rampaging enemy, swooping up one of his own to pull them to safety or aid. Mostly, though, he stayed on the fringes of the fight, his standard bearer and the four seasoned soldiers who made up his tail following in his wake and doing their best to keep him clear so he could observe, gage the battle, and relay his orders when he saw fit to make a change.

  Minutes turned to hours and felt like days. The battle was the bloodiest, deadliest he’d ever seen. Enemy deaths far outnumbered those of Han’s army, but for him that was better only by comparison. Making matters worse, no enemy combatant ever seemed to mourn a fallen comrade for even a second. Han knew it resulted from the magic laid upon them, but it made him sick all the same.

  Something fast and hard grazed his thigh, leaving a trail of hot pain and blood, and reminding Han he should keep moving. He urged Sim to some speed and cantered along the northern edge of battle, behind the line of his second army, looking across a bloody sea of humanity to search for the source of the bullet that, but for a couple of inches might have taken his leg.

  There. A sniper midway up the first slope that formed the foot of the North Face, half-hidden behind a stunted evergreen. Though Han was out of range for an ordinary arrow shot, four of the flame arrows in his quiver had an added enchantment on the fletching that would carry them far enough, with enough force, to take the sniper out. The man had been scanning the area for quarry, but now Han saw him put a cheek to his tripod-mounted rifle, preparing to get his target squarely in his sights. Han could work much faster.

  Look. Draw. Fire.

  The arrow penetrated at the top of the sniper’s chest, likely through the lung. Han expected him to back away, or perhaps try to
seek help. Instead, struggling for breath, he moved back into position to fire. Han sent another arrow flying. This one took him through the eye.

  As the sniper fell, Han caught sight of strange goings-on farther up the hill. He knew from experience a trail—rocky, narrow, and steep—cut across the slope, ducking down behind the false summit, then rising up through a rift in the North Face and leading back into the Fallows, through a pass not far from the western curve of the Valley of the Hand. And—unbelievably—Ehstenners now traversed that path. The people known by that name came from the foothills of the Ehls in the far north of the East March. They averaged around seven-and-a-half feet tall, which was why Han could see them, some passing up the hidden path, bent as if pulling a load, others heading down more quickly. In all, he could see six on the path, but when he let his gaze track one he saw three more in the middle of the fight.

  The least warlike people in all Ethra, they were the last kind Han had expected to see on the battlefield. They farmed, raised sheep for wool, cows for milk and chickens for eggs. Populations gathered in small towns built around crafters and markets. They didn’t fight—didn’t even hunt or eat their sheep.

  What in all the gods’ hells are they doing here?

  Part of the answer became obvious the moment he caught sight of a couple of their faces—they bore the same blank, bespelled looks as the rest of the enemy force. The thought of the Terrathians—and their sick Sunlands allies—putting these peace-loving people to use in their war angered Han as much as it saddened him. But then he saw what the Ehstenners were doing, and anger turned to bafflement.