“Yes,” Ismai agreed. “But, Sulema—”
Here he turned to face her. He placed both hands on her shoulders and peered into her face. As if he could not get enough. As if she were the last beautiful thing in the world.
“I used to dream of you. I still dream of you,” he told her. “Sometimes it seems that thoughts of you are all that connect me to this world. And I will never be sorry for that. I believe that we have come to the end of our world. That nothing we may do or say, no wars we may win or lose, will be enough now to stop Sajani from waking. It is too late for us to save the world.”
She could hardly breathe. “Why follow me, then, if this is what you truly believe? Why try at all?”
“Why not?” He shrugged, and for a moment Ismai, her Ismai, stood before her. “I would rather die by your side than anywhere else. It is not a bad thing, to die chasing a dream.” He reached up and touched her cheek, the barest caress. “And love is a dream worth chasing.”
With those words, Ismai—who was still Ismai, Lich King or no—turned and walked away from Sulema, leaving her with a heart as troubled and clouded as the angry sea.
“He does love you, you know. And who can blame him?”
Sulema spun to face her once and only lover, voicing a snarl which would have made Khurra’an proud.
“Halfmask!”
“Guilty as charged. Oh, wait, there is no need to get—” Her fist struck his sternum. “Oof! For the love of—” Another grazed his jaw. “Oh, Sulema, sweet Sulema, light in my heart, please do not cry.”
“I am not crying,” she snarled again, shaking the pain from her bruised knuckles. “These are tears of anger. I should kill you here and now and feed your worthless carcass to the serpents. I should—”
“You should kiss me,” he urged gently. “Because the night is short, and tomorrow is for war.” He reached up a hand to brush away her tears, and his mismatched eyes shone like the sea. “Because the dragon is waking—Ismai is right in this, as well—and tomorrow may be a fool’s dream, though I have ever been a fool for you.”
“You left me!” she cried, then bit her lip. How was it that her voice sounded so cursed weak when she spoke to him? She did want to kiss him, damn him, and that made her angrier still.
“As a matter of fact,” he replied, smiling that crooked smile which had gotten her into such trouble in the first place, “I came looking for you, and was captured by my brother Pythos’s men. They threw my ass into the darkest hole they could find and left me to rot.”
“So how did you—”
“Matteira, of course. My twin sister and I used to play in the dungeons when we were small and it was safer for us not to be seen about court. There are ways in and out of that place, and we know them all. She and two of her fools dressed as ragtag men came to collect the day’s bodies from the dungeons, and somehow one of the bodies and I swapped places. He was recently deceased, and a reasonable likeness to me, after certain—adjustments—were made to the face.” He grimaced. “The unfortunate man and I swapped clothes, I was rolled out of the dungeons and dumped out with the rags and offal, and here I am, begging for a kiss.” He batted his eyes at her, and Sulema snorted a laugh in spite of herself.
“Are you not worried that Matteira’s role in your escape might be discovered?”
“I am not escaped, I am dead. And do not trouble yourself with worry over my sister—she is more dangerous than you know. It would not surprise me to find her on the Dragon Throne one day, with all of us sitting at her feet wondering what in Yosh just happened.”
“So you came to the dungeons looking for me?” she asked. “If you know them so well, how did you not find me?”
“How could I hope to find you, when you were within me all along?” he said. His hand lingered on her cheek as if he could not bear to stand so close and not touch her. “My whole life, you have been here.” He touched his chest with his other hand. “You are my heart and my soul, Sulema. I could not find you before I found myself.”
“And did you?” she asked, swaying closer to the heat of him, even as she cursed herself for a fool. “Did you find yourself, Halfmask?”
By way of answer, Mattu reached up and took hold of the white fennec mask he had been wearing and pulled it up over his head. This he tossed into the sea as casually as a boy might throw flower petals into the wind on the first day of spring. Sulema watched the mask spin through the air and then disappear beneath the waves with a soft splash and a little spray of sea foam.
“Your mask,” she protested. She had never thought his scars hideous, but she was a barbarian, after all. “Though I suppose you have more of them…”
“I do not,” he told her, and smiled. His smile was beautiful. “I do not need to hide behind a mask any longer, sweet girl, now that I know who I am.”
“And who is that?”
Mattu stepped close, so close that only the whisper of wind lay between them, carrying the heat of their bodies back and forth like messages. He reached up to cradle Sulema’s face in both his hands—
—he was taller than she remembered, his eyes more piercing—
—and bent his mouth to hers.
“I am yours,” he whispered against her mouth, stealing her breath away, “my queen.” Then the Queen took the Thief to her own tiny cabin and let him steal her heart. For liars make the best lovers, she decided, when they tell the truth, and warriors know that trouble is especially sweet if you get caught on the eve of war.
FORTY - EIGHT
Leviathus listened to the talk of war, of kings and queens and sorceries, with one ear and half a heart. The rest of him, the better half, soared the deeps as a hawk commanded the air, king of a vast domain. The wind danced upon the waves, crafting castles and stories on the wave crests as it went, never regretting the loss as they faded away to naught. It was a lesson, a warning, an omen of the doom of men.
A gust of wind tugged at his windlocked hair, bringing him back to here and now, to dry air in his lungs and two feet planted securely on the hot sharp boards of a ship. Cruelly it reminded him that he shared the world’s fate, whether or not he had a hand in shaping it.
As if in concert with the mourning wind the voices of war-horns wailed out across the water, deep and fluting like the bellowing of wounded beasts, and were in turn answered by the joyful calls of leviathans. Huge triangular heads thrust from beneath the waves, mirror-scaled and sleek, jewel-crested and more beautiful in his eyes than any creature had a right to be. The sea between his boats roiled with the great forms as the sea prince and his court gave escort to the frail vessels floating upon the water bearing tiny, precious lives.
The sailors brought down the striped sails and lowered masts, while oars thrust from the sides like slender fins. The ships’ eyes and carven faces stared toward the approaching shoreline, as snarling and eager as their human crews who even now readied siege engines and horses, donning armor and preparing weapons.
Azhorus Ssurus az Lluriensos himself breached the sea’s skin, jewel eyes gleaming in mirth as he beheld the tiny two-leggeds preparing for war. His head, nearly as big as the ship upon which Leviathus sailed, briefly blotted out the sun and threw dark shadows upon them.
Little human, he sang in Leviathus’s mind, you are nearly arrived. I have brought you safely to the shores of your kind, that you may seize this territory and breed with the queens therein. Enormous self-satisfaction rolled from him like water drops. You may thank me now.
Thank you, Leviathus replied, shading his eyes against the sun’s angry glare as he looked up and up and up, a fond and foolish smile on his face. Never had he loved a thing in this world as he loved this incredible, silly, terrifying prince of the dark waters. We never would have made it this far without your kind assistance.
This is true, the sea prince allowed. Were we not bonded, you and I, my people would have taken great delight in crushing these tiny vessels and dining upon sweet manflesh.
Truly you are gracious. Leviath
us bowed, not at all ironically. Azhorus dipped his head in acknowledgment and slipped beneath the waves with hardly a splash.
The war horns cried out again—or perhaps it was the serpents. When Leviathus was in his smitten state, sometimes he could not tell the difference. Oars flashed down toward the water as the drums began to boom—thrum-thrum-thrum, thrum-thrum-thra-rumble—like the beating of a thousand great hearts beneath the waves.
“Magnificent,” Daru breathed, standing at his shoulder. “Simply marvelous, and none of the books I have ever read so much as mentioned the serpents as anything other than beasts. I wonder what else we do not know about our own planet?”
Leviathus looked at the boy and frowned. “No more than I have heard of a child becoming lost in the catacombs beneath Atukos and reappearing half a world away as a grown man.” He could not help mistrusting this grown version of the boy he had once known, any more than he could help liking him. Daru—if indeed his impossible tale was true, and this was Daru—was every bit as sharp-eyed and quick-witted and kind of heart as Hafsa Azeina’s young apprentice had been.
Most likely this is an impostor living a ridiculous lie, a spy in the employ of Pythos, he thought. Certainly, it was likelier than Daru’s strange cut-short explanation of a life lived among the stars.
“The Web of Illindra is woven of wonders,” Daru replied, undisturbed by Leviathus’s naked distrust, “too great for you or me to comprehend.”
“That much is true,” Leviathus agreed as the ships sped toward Atualon, crammed stem-to-stern with undead soldiers and painted warriors from the Seared Lands, escorted by serpents, and bearing the would-be Dragon Queen to claim her throne. “Divines know we live in a strange world, and in strange times.”
“Ehuani, and well said.” Daru smiled, and in that moment Leviathus knew that the youth’s story was, indeed, true. However impossible it might seem, this powerful young sorcerer was Hafsa Azeina’s frail apprentice, returned to them as a hale young man who had walked roads they could not imagine.
The excitement aboard the ships was a palpable thing as they drew nearer to the shores. None of the soldiers or warriors or sorcerers, and few even of his river pirates, had been especially happy about journeying over the deep blue waters, fearing that the serpents’ friendliness was feigned, and that a watery death awaited those who dared the open sea. Such had been the fate of any such venture for time immemorial.
Yet here they were, scant heartbeats away from Atualon and the fight of their lives. The last fight of many lives, to be sure, and the greatest of all. These events would be dutifully recorded in history books and passed down through the ages. All that remained was to determine how that history would be written, and by whom.
“Victors or vanquished?” Daru asked, correctly guessing his mind. “I guess we will know soon enough.”
“Ehuani,” Leviathus agreed, then he fell silent. There was a time for talk, and a time for action. As far as he was concerned, the time for words had passed.
* * *
Three days hence, Sulema summoned the captains of water and of war to a council aboard their father’s ship as the fleet lazed upon still waters. The great dragon-headed vessel had carried Leviathus to Aish Kalumm in search of his long-lost sister, setting in motion the chain of events which had brought them all here, and he agreed that it was fitting. Leviathans ferried them from vessel to vessel at Azhorus’s request and the sea filled with their bubbling laughter at the humans’ excited fear. Leviathus, aided and advised by Mahmouta, assigned places in battle to each ship and complement of fighters according to their strengths.
A thrill ran through him—fear or excitement, he could not tell which. Probably a bit of both, truth be told, and he made no apologies for either. Half his life and more had been spent in preparation for this moment, reading about war, writing about war, training first as a soldier and then as a commander, all in anticipation of one day leading his father’s armies in their defense of Atualon. Therefore, he was in a unique position to know all of her weaknesses, and to appreciate her defenses.
“If we attack from the bay,” Leviathus warned, “the tide will run red with our blood. It is true that the Dragon King has only a token navy—and his best river ships are returning from their voyage into the Zeera with an unwelcome surprise. It is true also that the leviathans are no friends to Pythos, and keen to hinder any effort he makes to attack us—”
Here he was interrupted by the high, fluting laughter of serpents.
“Still, my father and Aasah laid layer upon layer of traps, both magical and physical, against the unlikely event of a Sindanese attack from the sea.” He grimaced. “Mostly at my urging.”
Therefore little effort had been spent on stealth. The usurper Pythos had no sea fleet to speak of, and Atualon’s own river ships were manned by the undead and sailed now against him. Two hundred and thirty ships Leviathus commanded in total, ten times perhaps the size of the Dragon King’s navy, and the alliance of the leviathans besides. Unless Pythos had by some trick of foresight girded the northern shores against them, the motley armies were likely to face little real opposition until they set foot upon the white beaches. Perhaps not until they had begun their march on Atualon.
Still, Leviathus was uneasy.
“Never count upon luck in war,” the great Sindanese poet and general Zhao Quan had warned, “unless it is to count upon bad luck, in which case you will never be disappointed.” Their alliance with the leviathans had made their sea passage too easy. He could not allow himself to slip into complacency and expect their good fortune to continue unabated.
Already the first line of ships—eleven in total—had peeled away from the main group to weigh anchor before the harbor’s mouth. Well beyond the reach of those tricks and traps about which Leviathus had warned them, still they would be close enough to act should Atualon issue forth a surprise navy or magic of some sort. Leviathus had no doubt that the usurper Pythos had gained control of the Baidun Daiel, nor that he commanded the shadowmancer and the Salarians as well.
The bulk of the fleet would disgorge fighters and siege engines upon the northern shore, under cover of archers, and from there they would launch an attack upon the city. The slower fat-bellied merchants’ ships in the rear would deliver a second wave of troops even farther to the north to act as a vanguard on the off-chance that Pythos or Aasah had hidden forces in the trees or foothills.
It was a fine plan, on paper.
Leviathus had read too many papers concerning war to believe in his heart that it would proceed so smoothly.
As they drew nearer the shoreline, the cloud-crowned peak of Atukos loomed above in their eyes and their minds, and Leviathus beheld the great fortress of his childhood, set upon the mountain’s face like a massive dark jewel. Set also in darkness it seemed, refusing to reflect the bright light of day, choosing rather to drink it in and vomit forth shade and shadow, as if it brooded still over the loss of Wyvernus.
Even as the thought swam across Leviathus’s mind he watched as Sulema, standing warlike and golden upon the deck of the nearest ship, shoulder-to-shoulder with the Lich King and her sword-sister Hannei, raised up the glittering Mask of Sajani. It settled upon her face and flashed in the sunlight like a blue-green jewel with the heart of a star, blinding in its brilliance and cold as winter snow. Sulema lifted the fox-head staff of a dreamshifter and brought it down once, twice, three times upon the ship’s deck.
The leviathans went silent—until that moment, Leviathus had not realized they were singing in his head— and a wave of atulfah, discernible even to the magic-deaf son of a Dragon King, burst forth as his sister raised her voice in song, causing ripples like small waves to shudder out from the ship until the wave lapped at the foot of Atukos. Sulema sang as surely Aasah or their father had taught her, wielding atulfah.
Atukos sang back.
The fortress blazed in response, a golden inferno captured in black diamond, and the dragonglass walls roared to life. The mountain
shuddered and groaned, a low sound at first almost impossible to discern, and then louder, stronger, till the timbre and pitch was a deep throbbing in his bones. The ground trembled and shook, trees dancing upon the shore as if caught in a tempest, and the waves of the sea grew dark and fell, tossing their ships like a child’s toy boats.
The leviathans grew wild and frenzied, throwing themselves full length from the sea’s embrace as if trying to fly, till it seemed the fleet was in danger of being swamped before they could make landfall. A final mighty blast seized Atukos, and the mountain’s top was lost in a plume of thick gray ash and smoke that boiled upward to the sky, rent with flashes of silver and gold and green.
The ship lurched beneath Leviathus’s feet and he flung his arms out to steady himself. One flailing elbow struck something soft and solid, and a small hard fist punched him back. Leviathus turned to see Yaela, locked hair streaming about her in the rising wind, wide-eyed and laughing in wild delight. Leviathus grinned back. Despite everything, it occurred to him that he would not be anywhere else in the world, at that moment, given a choice.
“Yaela, my dear,” he shouted to her, even as she snugged herself under his upraised arm and he pulled her tight to his side, “we are home.”
FORTY - NINE
Beyond the white-capped waves of Nar Bedayyan, Hannei could see the black face of Atukos looking down on them from on high, quiet and brooding in the high hot sun. Lines of tall dark trees flowed down from the mountain’s sides like a mother’s skirts.
Those ships that had been sent to the north had landed first and disgorged their forces in preparation for the main landing party. Flags and banners which had been sewn in haste were raised and glittered like cloth-of-gold—bright Akari and lovely Sajani twined in a lover’s knot around the black form of a rearing horse. That was Sulema’s standard.
Hannei’s mouth twisted at the thought of it, and she spat into the stinking sea. The bloodlines of Tammas had stretched back to the first light of the first dawn, and her own were nearly as remarkable. Did the blood of the ne Atu run thicker than that of Zula Din? Sword-sister or no, Sulema had done little more to earn these accolades than be born of the sweat of man and woman, same as any other babe.
The Seared Lands Page 42
