The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom

by Dickson, H. Leighton

  It looked like a bear, a leathery, hairless bear. Kerris thought it was almost the most fearsome thing he had ever seen.

  “Can you speak?” he asked, bouncing up onto the balls of his feet. “I’m sure you can. You just need to try…”

  The leathery arm swung and the grey lion ducked back, noticing the hand and the lethal claws at the end of each finger. He marveled at them, so thick and curved and dagger-like and once again, he called for the sword. He could feel it trying, could feel the metal all around it, cursed the metal and the earth and the lack of sky.

  The bear swung again and again he ducked, but the animal charged and it was unexpected and the two of them crashed backwards onto the rocks. Kerris kicked up with his feet and he raked the creature’s chest and belly with his pedal claws. It roared and hammered its leathery elbow down onto the grey chest. Stars popped behind Kerris’ eyes and he struggled to draw breath. He could have sworn he heard cheering but it could have been the stars.

  He heard the rock whisper once again, reached out his hand and suddenly, it was there. He swung it into the leathery head, once, twice, three times before the bear rolled away and Kerris scrambled to his feet, one hand on his ribs, the other gripping the rock. He shook his head, wincing as a sharp pain stabbed from his chest. Something was bad, something was broken but honestly, all he could hear was cheering. He was hearing cheering and he looked around at the false tree line, the unnatural sky. It made no sense.

  Slowly, the bear rose to his feet and studied him, the skin sliced along his chest and belly, dripping blood onto the ground. Kerris dropped the rock, held one hand out in front of him to pacify and calm. His head was spinning and he could taste blood on his tongue.

  “Peace, brother,” he panted in Imperial, then in Hanyin. He didn’t know Gowrain. Didn’t think most Gowrain knew Gowrain, but little was known of their culture in the Upper Kingdom. And, being a world away, this creature likely would not speak it anyway. It made no sense.

  The bear opened its mouth, raised its upper lip as if trying to speak. It swung its head back and forth, back and forth and dropped its arms to pound the rocky ground.

  Kerris shook his head.

  “I don’t know what you want,” he said. “But we don’t have to fight. That’s really not a good idea…”

  It stared at him a long moment and Kerris thought its eyes were rather sad. It swung its head again, looking over its shoulder before looking back at him. And then it did a rather strange thing.

  It sighed.

  It was as if all the air left its body when it did so, but it sighed, the sound of thunder and earthstorms and a lifetime of sadness.

  Kerris sheathed his claws, dropped his arms to his side, took a long deep breath but winced again as the pain stabbed up from his ribs. There was a new smell now, a yellow one running along the clouds and suddenly, a light began to flash red and the sky split with the sound of shrieking metal. He clapped his hands over his ears while jolts from the metal at his throat threatened to send him to his knees. The bear bellowed at the sky, pounded the ground once again. The yellow eased up so Kerris could breathe and suddenly, it all made sense.

  “No!” he shouted to the walls of trees and sky. “We will not—”

  Yellow again, turning white with waves of heat from the metal at his throat.

  It was over in moments, and he stood with hands on knees, panting for breath.

  Lightning, the yellow whispered in his mind. I am your lightning. Call me.

  “We will not fight,” he gasped and he raised his eyes to the bear, could see the creature swinging its head, mouth open as if wailing but in silence. With all his senses, he could feel the yellow buzz from the bear’s collar and this time when it turned back to him, there was no sadness, only fury.

  And Kerris understood the weeping of the rocks.

  ***

  They could hear the whistling arrows and Sireth prayed the Shield would hold. There were only two of them gifted and the Alchemist’s eyes were as black as the night. He did not know how much longer she would stand against the Oracle’s attacks or how he would stand if she fell.

  Arrows shattered and dropped away, heads and shafts and splintered wood raining down on them as they thundered past. The wall of dogs was growing larger as they neared— spears, swords and deadly halah’bards raised to impale. He glanced over at his wife riding without reins, saw the fierce light in her eyes, her dual swords clutched in each hand. She was a warrior, glorious in battle and his heart swelled at the sight.

  Naranbataar dropped to his knees, skidding along the rocky ground and he released arrow after arrow as he slid. The foremost dogs fell, their weapons hitting the ground and the horses leapt into the heart of the Legion.

  ***

  “This is a bad idea,” mumbled Kerris to the monkey at his side.

  “Does your wife have bad ideas?” asked Bo.

  “The Khan is proud and short-sighted,” said Kerris. “He won’t back down from a challenge like this.”

  “If it is war he wants,” growled Kirin. “We can give him one.”

  “You have the heart of a diplomat, brother.”

  Kirin grunted, glanced over at the Oracle, at Yahn Nevye sitting behind her in the saddle. The man looked strained, his odd white eyes unfocused and he recognized the look from years of riding with Sireth benAramis.

  “They’ve made a Shield,” he said. “benAramis and the others. They’ve engaged the Necromancer.”

  “You will be fine,” said Kirin. “You are stronger than you think.”

  “I can feel his teeth closing in. I don’t know how to fight him.”

  “Can you make the Shield for us again?”

  The man released a long breath, and then another.

  “For as long as I can, I will,” he said quietly. “Blue Wolf.”

  “Yellow Cat,” answered the Oracle.

  “If they can’t make the Shield,” said Bo. “Then I would rather die by an arrow than face one of their swords.”

  “I would rather not die at all,” muttered Kerris.

  “You pulled the sticks?”

  “Five.”

  “Ah, well. Life is like the dew of morning.”

  “Frozen?” asked Kerris but he grinned.

  Kirin turned his eyes back to the dogs, ten thousand soldiers on the Field of One Hundred Stones.

  ***

  ala Asalan in one hand, the swinging kushagamak in the other and one boot on the back of his Irh-Khan, the Bear was a fearsome sight.

  “Proof of your intentions?” he snarled over the thunder of hoofs and the roar of the Ten Thousand. “Proof of your intentions, indeed! We will kill you and feast on your horses for weeks!”

  He raised ala Asalan to the sky.

  “Shoot them all!”

  The sky was ripped apart by the shrieking of arrows.

  ***

  She leapt from her horse, rolling across their backs until her feet found solid ground. She swung the katanah, taking off an arm, cut up with the kohai’chi, opening a belly. She moved and pivoted, swung and struck. She was lightning, she was music, she was steel.

  A thud to her shoulder, heat. Still holding the short sword, she yanked the bolt out of the flesh and leather of her uniform, sent both arrow and blade into the throat of the nearest dog. Sparing nothing, she leapt into the air, her high bootheel cracking the jaw of another even as she swung her other leg to snap the neck of a third. She landed in a crouch, blades crossed like scissors and she swept her arms wide, taking out any number of legs and hips and waists as she moved. She could not think of her husband, could not spare a glance. She was his steel and she would pave his way in blood or die in the attempt.

  Next to her, a wave of black, a shroud, a shadow. Leaping and striking with palms and daggers and whisper-thin blades. Untouchable, unstoppable, the kunoi’chi moved like the wind, slipped like the ice, ducking arrows and bending steel and men fell at her feet as she sprang from shoulder to back, dropping to the ground w
ith soldiers caught in her crossed ankles, swinging their torsos overhead to crash against their fellow soldiers. Her foot would lash, take down another, spring backwards onto her hands, cracking teeth and jaws with her heels. Ninjah with eyes as black as her cloth.

  Naranbataar rushed the Legion, snatching bolts from fallen dogs, firing them before they found a home in his bow. Heat along his ribs but he whirled, snatched the sword and nocked it, sending it into the chest of its owner like a mighty arrow, its tip appearing out the other side as the soldier went down.

  The priest merely walked through them all, robes whipping like banners, mane flying like wind. His arms were stretched out at his sides, and dogs were flung to their backs as if struck by invisible fists. He moved with deadly purpose and the Needle shrieked its glee, perched high on the shoulder of the Storm, slapping the inky pelt with one hand, holding on to the hood with the other.

  The Storm swung a withered stick, the Seer ducked easily. The Storm stomped the ground and everything shook, yellow dust rose high into the air as if from a thousand horses. An arrow thudded into its chest, disappearing into the folds as if it were never there. A second arrow and Sireth could see the young dog racing through the battle, his hands filled with soldiers but knowing their target was the Storm.

  “Give me the eyes,” snarled the Seer. “And we will leave you to your fate.”

  “The eyes of the Magic for the eyes of the Khanmaker!” boomed the Oracles, the Storm a heartbeat behind the Needle, creating an echo like lightning followed by thunder. And the Needle disappeared into the pouch of skin, reappeared with five orbs, swinging at the ends of white tendon.

  “Come get them, Seer!”

  The Needle cackled like a crow.

  “Higher! Reach higher!”

  “I will have them!” and Sireth lunged forward, his long arms reaching for and grabbing the stick from his hand. It was an arm, he knew it the moment he touched it and the current of Necromancy ran through his body like the bite of a scorpion. He dropped it to the ground, his own arm useless now and reached again with the other, as if meaning to climb the mountain of dog but the Needle shrieked and held the eyes high above them all. The Storm’s massive hand clasped the Seer’s throat, drawing him close.

  “Last Seer of Sha’Hadin,” wailed the voices inside his head as a second massive hand fell across his vision. “You see nothing!”

  “I see more than you, monster!”

  “We take your eyes for our pleasure!”

  “You take mine and I’ll take yours!” barked the Seer. “Mi-Hahn! Now!”

  Suddenly, the Needle shrieked as a falcon swept down from the sky, grasping the eyes in its razor talons. The tiny Oracle wailed and batted but refused to let go but Mi-Hahn beat with furious wings, lifting both eyes and Needle upwards.

  The Storm roared and released the cat, raising his arms to the skies but bird and dog were high up now. The Needle was swinging with his free hand, grabbing at wings, grabbing at tail feathers and it managed to pull itself up to Mi-Hahn’s thin legs, closed on them with its toothless mouth.

  Mi-Hahn cried out and swung her lethal beak down and into the remaining eye of the Needle and the wail could be heard inside all their heads. In fact, Sireth dropped to the ground, hands clutched against his temples and the shrieking went on and on. He could see it as if with his own eyes as the struggle was waged in the air and here on the ground, the Storm howled in agony as Naranbataar put arrow after arrow into his back.

  Releasing its hold, the Needle plummeted to the rocky earth and hit the ground with a crunch. It lay for a moment, twitching and convulsing, before pushing itself up onto shattered arms and over onto a broken back. Blood bubbled on its tongue but there was also an eye, as white as the moon. It cackled and closed its toothless mouth, bursting the orb and spilling jelly out through the gums.

  It did not move after that.

  There was silence for a moment on the Plateau of Tevd before the Storm opened his mouth and at the sound, the mountains fell into the sea.

  ***

  Kirin held his breath as the sky was blackened by the arrows of the Enemy, the whistling drowning out all thought, filling his heart with dread and the desire to flee. That was the intent, after all. But he knew his people, knew they waited for the shattering of the arrows upon the Shield.

  They shattered.

  In a hailstorm of splinters, the Shield held and he silently gave thanks to the gods, to Dharma and fate and the Empress, that he had not killed Yahn Nevye when he’d had the chance.

  A second wave came, brought with it the nightmare howls of banshees, the screams of dying rats, steel claws dragged across stone. Again they shattered but there was motion to his left and he turned to see the Oracle and the jaguar struggling on the back of the horse. Together, they pitched from the saddle and Kirin knew the Eyes of Jia’Khan were working their dark magic. Heart in his throat, he glanced over at his brother but Kerris shook his head and Kirin knew beyond a doubt when the third wave came, there would be no Shield to stop it.

  ***

  “Shar!” cried the Oracle as Shar Ma’uul arched his back in the rocks. It was growing dark but his robes were darker and she tried to find blood with her hands. There was none. “No Shar. You fight. Shar strong fighter!”

  “The arrows,” he cried. “I feel them all…”

  His white eyes were wide, seeing nothing and his breathing was coming in quick, shallow gasps.

  “There’s twelve. Twelve! That’s not a holy number. Why?”

  “Shar, no. You fight.”

  “I’m falling! Falling from the Mouth of God…”

  “No, Sherah save you. Silence save you.”

  “Don’t look at my hands. Please, don’t look.”

  She gathered his hands into hers. They were not scarred. He was not bleeding. It was Necromancy and it was killing him.

  “Eye of the Needle,” he whispered. “Eye of the Storm.”

  She squeezed his knuckles. “I save you, Shar.”

  “Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Storm, Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Storm.”

  “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

  “Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Storm.”

  “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat. Say it. Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat!”

  He gasped for breath, smiled quickly.

  “Say it, Shar!”

  “Blue Wolf.”

  “Say it!”

  “Blue Wolf.”

  “Again!”

  “Blue…”

  Gasped, then was still.

  “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat,” she said to herself. “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat. Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

  She rose to her feet, pulled the dagger that she had taken from the Lieutenant of the 110th Legion of the Khan. Turned to look over her shoulder at the Ten Thousand at the Field of One Hundred Stones.

  “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

  And she sprinted across the yellow plains as the third wave of arrows was released.

  ***

  The whistles of nightmare started once again.

  “We fight!” shouted Kirin and he spurred his heels into Shenan’s blood-red sides. “Now!”

  Kerris turned on Quiz’s back, shouted to a Chi’Chen guard in the rear and men began to move in the Army of Blood as a third wave split the darkening sky. The ground shook to as sixteen thousand soldiers rushed together across the plain and from the sides, seven thousand horses thundered into the battle, with nineteen leopards and one terrified tigress at the helm.

  ***

  Fallon heard the shriek of the arrows, saw the rush of the Army and she dug her heels into her painted horse. It rose up on its hind legs, pawed the sky with its front then leapt forward, began to churn up the ground toward the dogs. Three thousand four hundred and ninety nine others followed.

  ***

  Arrows rained down on them, killing many, wounding more. Feline and Chi’Chen armour took even more but as the Army of Blood charged, most arrows struck dirt and rock and emptiness.


  One little mountain pony did not move.

  As thousands rushed past, Kerris stared at the One Hundred Stones towering above them on the mound. Dust and pebbles began to circle around his fists as the tallest of the Deer Stones began to move.

  It began to rise out of the ground with a noise like the grinding of great wheels before tipping and crashing down onto another, which shattered into pieces and rained to the ground, crushing several dogs beneath the weights of stone. Another pushed up from its bed, tipped and fell, crashing into a second and third until soon, the entire Field of One Hundred Stones were falling and the Legions scattered like rice at a wedding.

  He gasped as an arrow thudded into his thigh. A second and third struck the pony. Quiz squealed and bolted and for the first time in living memory, Kerris fell off and onto the stone.

  Forgotten by the Khan, Swift scrambled out of the way and unnoticed by anyone, Jalair Naransetseg raced into it as the armies collided with a sound like thunder.

  ***

  Sireth leapt to his feet and back into the reach of the Storm, slapping his palms against the sides of the creature’s head. And suddenly, there were two other hands added to his, long and strong and spotted with the pelt of a cheetah and Sherah al Shiva scaled the arrows to climb up the back of the mountain, wrapping her long legs around its neck. She began to spin black silk cords around the massive throat, over the jowls, under the jowls, across the eyes and pushed-in nose and mouth. Saliva swung in strands from its lips.

  She brought her face down next to its ear.

  “You are beaten, sidi,” she purred. “Release your claim on the Magic and the Eye of the Needle will be spared.”

  It wailed but no words came.

  “Release the Magic.”