‘You!’ another voice bellowed. Wahim and Cutter were several paces away, Cutter holding a sword, Wahim’s hands at his sides. The Horseman didn’t understand the mortals’ language but he recognised a sword and a challenge and grinned arrogantly. Twirling his weapon to show his eagerness and prowess, he approached them. Wahim raised a peacemaker and fired point-blank into the Horseman’s face. Mortally wounded, the Horseman crumpled.
‘How badly are you hurt?’ Chase asked Meg, staring at the knife embedded in her right arm.
‘It will heal,’ she answered, and drew a deep breath as she straightened. She winced in pain as she pulled out the knife. Her left arm was broken. It didn’t matter.
She looked up. Inheritor was battling for his life. The Horsemen circled and charged him one at a time, hacking at him, his horse, searching for a weakness, an advantage.
Inheritor beat off their probing and slicing weapons, Abreotan’s sword weaving and parrying as if it was controlling his arm. When one Horseman probed too deeply Inheritor hacked off his sword arm. The wounded rider almost fell, but held tight to his reins and pulled away. Meg seized her opportunity, focussed her amber energy on him. His blue aura disappeared and he fell.
To her horror, the three surviving Horsemen suddenly wheeled away from Inheritor and came charging into the castle, balls of flame and lightning disintegrating the stone.
‘Run!’ she screamed to her companions, and, with all her strength, ignoring the pain searing through her body, she threw up a wall of magic like the glyph that encompassed the castle. It was enough to halt the charging Horsemen, if only for an instant, while Chase, Cutter and Wahim ran for the throne room door. Beyond Meg’s magical wall the castle was turning to dust. The old gateway and southern wall dissolved and the wind blew the dust against the glyph. Then the Horsemen punched through the barrier, sparks exploding from the clash of magic, and reined in before Meg. ‘You meddle too much,’ one snarled as he pointed his jagged weapon at her.
Meg shut her eyes and heard the blue energy explode, but never felt the impact. When she opened her eyes, a small, thin figure, glowing amber, stood between her and the Horsemen. ‘Runner,’ Meg gasped.
The Horsemen dismounted and one strode towards the amber figure. He lifted his jagged sword and plunged it into the boy. The slight figure melted to dust. Meg cried out in horror.
Inheritor appeared in the courtyard, Abreotan’s sword flaming with amber energy. He attacked the Horsemen like a madman, vigorously beating them backwards. For a moment it looked as though he had the upper hand, but the three Horsemen rallied and slowly began to force Inheritor back.
‘Use the sword to channel your energy,’ A Ahmud Ki told Meg before he died. This time she focussed on the sword as she cast another unmaking spell. The sword brightened and the blue aura surrounding the Horsemen and their horses vanished. Inheritor struck hard and a Horseman stumbled back, mortally wounded. There came a sharp cracking sound, a thud of metal on metal, and a second Horseman fell to his knees. To her left, Meg saw Wahim take aim and fire again. The Horseman jerked backwards and collapsed.
At the same instant, Inheritor plunged Abreotan’s sword deep into the belly of the last Horseman. To everyone’s amazement, the warrior grabbed the blade and wrenched it out, then staggered backwards, his own jagged weapon falling with an echoing clatter on the paving stones. Inheritor, Wahim, Cutter and Chase encircled him warily, but he seemed oblivious to their presence. He stumbled back another three paces, then leaned against the wall and pulled off his helmet, letting his long blond hair tumble free as he gasped for air. He spoke a phrase in his ancient language and sagged. Swaying, he stared past the circle of men at Meg, the amber glow from Inheritor’s blade lighting his face. ‘Dracabeorn,’ he said, then toppled to the ground, a clatter of metal on stone.
The wind dropped. An isolated peal of thunder rumbled across the landscape towards the mountains. And the night was silent and still.
Meg sank to her knees beside the pile of grey dust that had been her great-grandson. In its centre, she found a sliver of amber. She picked it up and stared at it. Then she fished in her vest and found her pocket empty.
‘He must have taken it when you were hugging him,’ said Chase quietly.
Meg looked up at her grandson, his friend, her old friend Cutter, and Inheritor, tears in her eyes, her hands trembling. ‘It’s over,’ she said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Meg knelt beside the corpse, pulled back the tapestry and placed the sliver of amber on A Ahmud Ki’s chest. ‘It is done,’ she whispered. ‘The sword was the answer.’ She stifled a sob, but the sound echoed in the dark museum. She caught her breath. ‘Runner saved my life,’ she said, her lips trembling. ‘Swift would have been so proud.’ She spread her hand across the tapestry, across the scene of dragons battling in the skies above the castle, and lowered her head against it. ‘I wish you could have seen it.’
She let out a groan and allowed her tears to flow, and stayed there a long time.
‘Meg?’
She lifted her head. ‘Who is it?’
A light glimmered in the shape of a sword blade and brightened. ‘Can I come in?’
She wiped her face and stood. ‘Yes.’
Inheritor approached, dimming the sword light, and looked at Meg before he gazed at the tapestry-covered body. ‘We owe him all our lives.’
‘I know,’ she replied. ‘I know.’
‘You loved him, didn’t you?’
She stared at Inheritor, appraising the man who had also risked his life to save everyone. ‘Yes. I did.’
‘I don’t miss much,’ Inheritor told her. ‘A king can’t be a good king if he can’t read his people.’
‘But now you have no kingdom to rule.’
He smiled wryly. ‘No. No, I don’t.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘Learn to live like everyone else,’ he said. ‘What else should a ready-made hero do?’
Meg smiled.
‘What will I do with this?’ he asked, brandishing the sword.
‘It’s yours,’ she said. ‘Do with it as you wish.’
He shook his head. ‘No one should own this. It’s too dangerous.’ He turned the sword, admiring the blade, unmarked despite the battle. ‘I felt like a god,’ he confessed and lowered his head. ‘I don’t think that’s healthy. I can’t keep this sword. It would change me.’
‘That’s your choice,’ said Meg.
‘I have one question,’ he said. ‘What did the last Horseman say?’
‘When he was dying?’
‘Yes.’
‘He said it felt good to be free at last.’ She met Inheritor’s gaze and saw that he understood what the warrior might have meant.
‘He called you something.’
‘Dracabeorn,’ Meg said. ‘Dragonlord.’
‘Lady Amber,’ Inheritor murmured and smiled. ‘Of course.’
He turned to leave, but stopped to look directly at her again. ‘You said this sword would do whatever I willed.’
‘I’m sure it has limitations,’ she said.
His gaze shifted to the tapestry-covered body. ‘Can it resurrect the dead?’
Meg felt a shiver along her spine. ‘I doubt it,’ she said, and the memory of saving Swift from the brink of death made her shiver again.
‘I think we should try,’ said Inheritor.
‘Channel your energy through the sword and you will be stronger than you ever could be alone.’ A Ahmud Ki’s advice teased her. Some of the books she had read had included information on raising the dead. How much could be true? ‘I don’t know enough about it,’ she said. ‘Besides, it’s probably too late.’ But she hated her answers even as she gave them. I would exchange my life for his, she thought.
‘One try,’ Inheritor suggested. ‘He deserves that from us.’
This is wrong, Meg scolded herself, and clenched her fists to say no, but in the moment of opening her mouth she knew she would curse herself if she
didn’t give A Ahmud Ki at least that much respect. ‘One try,’ she said.
‘Let’s see what happens,’ Inheritor said and lowered the sword towards A Ahmud Ki’s corpse.
‘No!’ Meg cried. ‘Not like that.’ She took a breath. ‘The sword is a conduit. Hold it steady and concentrate on opening it to me. That’s all you have to do. I’ll channel my power through it to amplify it. Will you do that?’
Inheritor nodded.
‘Wish me luck,’ she added.
‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Jarudha guide you.’
She smiled at the irony of the blessing in the wake of what the Jarudhan religion had brought to pass, then glanced down at the tapestry. I have to try, she told A Ahmud Ki.
She imagined the sword as a doorway and focussed her energy on entering it, seeking access to A Ahmud Ki’s mind, but the space she entered was black, empty. He has no consciousness, she reminded herself. There must be a place where the dead go. She held fast in the black void and recalled the journey she had undergone to bring Swift back from near death. Then, she had encountered a wild river, but there was no river here, just silence and emptiness. Which way? she wondered. Any way, she decided, and imagined pushing through the void. A Ahmud Ki? she called. Where are you?
She felt as if she was walking on shale, and when she looked down was surprised to see actual ground covered with loose flat stones. She looked up and the inky blackness was softer, like thick fog. She paused at a low stone wall that stretched out of sight in both directions and marvelled at the odd construction, but she felt cold and for the first time was aware of her own heartbeat. It was slow, laboured. I’m dying, she realised. If I stay here too long, I’ll die. As she went to step over the low wall she heard a voice.
Don’t step over.
Why not?
You can’t go back.
Who are you?
A grey face appeared before her. You know who I am.
I’ve come to take you back.
I can’t go back, he said. I crossed over.
I’ve come to take you back, she repeated. Take my hand.
No one goes back.
You will, she told him. Take my hand.
You’re using the sword.
Take my hand, she insisted. She felt her heartbeat stop. Now.
People moved around her. Voices whispered. She sensed light. And there was darkness too. Sometimes she felt kisses on her forehead, on her cheeks. And still the voices whispered. She dreamed that she was in Summerbrook. It was Akim season—wattle blossoms coloured the khaki bushland and Sunfire the dingo trotted beside her, his sandy and cream coat shining. She was on a hilltop, looking into the valley where the stream glittered as it snaked through the village. Her brothers were at the bridge, fishing. Her mother was hanging washing on the line. A brace of kookaburras chuckled in the gum trees. She was home.
She tried to open her eyes, but the light was too bright. She turned her head to the side and opened them again. ‘Hello, Great-grandmother,’ said a bright cherubic face.
‘Jon,’ she whispered.
Someone she couldn’t see said, ‘She’s awake!’
Of course I’m awake, she thought, and scowled.
A pretty young woman with thick red hair appeared and said, ‘It’s good to see you again.’
Passion, she remembered. ‘I’m still here,’ she said, surprised at how dry and harsh her voice sounded. She closed her eyes to sleep again.
She stared at him for a long, silent time and he seemed content to do the same. Finally, she drew a deep breath and asked, ‘Am I dead?’
His face broke into a smile. ‘No,’ he answered. ‘You’re very much alive.’ He reached for her arm with his slender hand and she enjoyed the sensation of his fingers against her skin.
‘What now?’ she said.
His grey eyes sparkled with energy. ‘You finish healing first. Then I have something to show you.’
‘What?’
‘You have to see it for yourself,’ he said and kissed her forehead.
The carriage swayed in the breeze as the dragon egg reached the zenith of its flight and the windwheels stopped whirring. A Ahmud Ki took her hand and led her to the window. Below them spread the landscape of Central Andrak, green from the mountains to the central plain, then marred by a swathe of grey dust that extended as far as they could see to the south and all the way up to the plateau where the ruins of a castle stood defiantly. The former city of Lightsword was grey dust split by a dry river, but a short distance to the west, on the plains of Ky, buildings were being constructed as the new city took shape.
‘The Ranu people owe you a great deal,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘They owe me nothing. Without you, without the battle you fought for a lifetime, the Horsemen would have destroyed everything.’
‘Inheritor is the hero. The sword saved everyone.’
‘Inheritor is trying to avoid anything to do with being labelled a hero,’ said A Ahmud Ki.
‘He won’t be able to do that,’ she argued. ‘He has a responsibility to the people.’
‘He knows that. He was born to be a leader. The Ranu Council has already started talking to him about running for the next presidency. He’s an ideal candidate—handsome, exotic, and a hero.’
‘Like someone else,’ Meg said.
A Ahmud Ki grinned. ‘Perhaps.’
‘And what will you do, now that it’s over?’
He looked at her and said, ‘I’d like to go into partnership with someone who’s more than my equal.’
‘Are you asking me to marry you? Aren’t we a bit old for that?’
He smiled. An instant later he was the younger version of himself. ‘I think you know how to remedy that.’
She laughed and transformed into the young red-haired woman who had blundered into Queen Sunset’s palace more than forty years before. ‘Is this what you had in mind?’ she asked coquettishly.
He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled away. ‘You said you had something you wanted to show me.’
He laughed. ‘Indeed I do. But it requires a portal.’
He checked that the dragon egg crew were busy at their places before forming a portal in the exit door frame. ‘After you,’ he offered.
‘Where are we going?’
‘After you,’ he said again.
She stepped through into a familiar bleak landscape. When he appeared beside her, she asked, ‘Why Se’Treya?’
‘I have a proposition for you,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
She followed him through the cloying ankle-deep dust and shivered at her memories of her first encounter with the Demon Horsemen in this place of the Dragonlords. He led her to one of the white skeletal trees.
‘This is what the Dragonlords wanted,’ he said, ‘a dead world, devoid of any life except their own. This was their playground. They drained it of magic so that they were equals in it. It wasn’t always like this.’
‘What was it like?’
‘The Dragonlords were Elvenaar. They were born and raised in the endless forests. This used to be a forest when they first made it, but their mock battles with their dragon mounts and the endless bursts of magical energy destroyed it. And then they sealed it to stay like this.’ He looked up at the endless blue sky. ‘They even denied a sun to shine here.’
‘It makes no sense,’ she said. ‘Now there’s no one to come here.’
‘Look at this,’ A Ahmud Ki said, and touched a white twig. A green leaf appeared and the twig started to change colour to a light brown. He touched a second twig as Meg stared in astonishment and another leaf appeared.
‘How?’ she asked.
‘Simple,’ he said. ‘This place is the product of countless unmaking spells. It’s like a gigantic, intricate glyph, except it isn’t complex at all. It will just take some time and patience to unmake the unmaking spells.’
‘You want to return this place to its original state?’
A Ahmud Ki shook his head. ‘Perhaps o
ne day you and I could do that. But that’s not my proposition. I’ve got something much bigger for us to work on.’ He took her hands in his. ‘The Demon Horsemen did a lot of damage. We can’t remake what they destroyed—the people, the towns, the animals—but we can unmake the damage they caused to the earth. We can give those places a chance to renew themselves.’
‘That will take years,’ she said.
He laughed again, his joy echoing across the dead landscape. ‘You’re a Dragonlord. You can take as many years as you want.’
‘I want to spend time with my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren.’
‘And even your great-great-grandchildren, if you choose,’ said A Ahmud Ki. ‘Deal?’
Meg turned to a dead twig on the tree and imagined life oozing through the wood to form a green leaf. As the leaf materialised she said, ‘Deal,’ and laughed as she remembered laughing as a child in the fields and hills around Summerbrook.
APPENDIX
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WESTERN SHESS
The title of Shess for the vast western regions first appeared on cartographers’ documents during the seven-century reign of the Ashuak Empire, when Emperor Haarva began his expansionist crusade, and the Ashuak word ‘Shess’, meaning ‘foreign ones’, referred to a conglomerate of tribal factions with diverse cultures and languages. Despite disharmony and constant factional fighting between the many tribes, the great Ashuak armies failed to control the land they invaded. Instead, they learned that a disunited enemy was more troublesome than a united one because they were constantly harassed and confronted by new tribal groups who did not accept that the defeat of their neighbours also signified Ashuak rule over them. During the period of the Ashuak Empire, individuals sometimes tried to unite tribal groups against the common enemy. The concept of nationalism never superseded parochial tribalism, but the Ashuak principles of expansion and imperial rule took root, and after the Empire collapsed the strongest tribes in the north and west gradually dominated their neighbours to establish fledgling kingdoms.
Western Shess first took shape under the warrior chieftain Bigaxe Royal, a veteran of several battles with the Ashuak invaders. Bigaxe declared himself king of his region, demanding that his neighbouring tribal leaders recognise his sovereignty, and ruthlessly enforced his leadership over the many dissenters. Curiously, Bigaxe retained the Ashuak name for the region, probably because the only existent maps of the land were Ashuak in origin.
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