Chezru Douan and Kaliit Timig watched the procession side by side, on a balcony of the great temple. “Yatol is ever wise,” Douan remarked.
“Of course, God-Voice,” the Kaliit promptly replied.
“My man in Honce-the-Bear, Daween Kusaad, is not pleased with the new Queen Jilseponie,” Douan added, and that caught Timig by surprise, for never had the God-Voice been known to share such political information with his Chezhou-Lei elite guard.
“She is Abellican, you know,” Douan went on when Timig looked at him questioningly. “A ranking member of the infidel Church, akin to an abbot in power.”
The Kaliit nodded, though he had not heard any such thing, nor did he much understand why it mattered.
“She was instrumental in the defeat of Abbot Olin of Entel in his bid to lead the Abellican Church, an ascension that would have surely strengthened the ties of Behren and our neighbors to the north. I fear that her work toward his defeat may be an indication that King Danube, her husband, will take action against Abbot Olin in Entel, and will weaken the ties between our lands.”
Kaliit Timig had no idea of how he was supposed to respond, or even if he was supposed to respond, for Chezru Douan had never spoken to him about such matters, and he wasn’t quite sure what the man might be getting at.
But then Douan looked at him directly, his expression stern. “If King Danube moves against Abbot Olin of Entel, then we will support the man—perhaps we will even fight beside him to hold control of his city.”
Kaliit Timig’s old and drooping eyes widened at that! “You think to sail around the mountain spur and enter Honce-the-Bear?”
“If Yatol so decrees,” the calm Chezru Chieftain said, and he looked back to the procession passing along the road below.
Yakim Douan did well to hide his smile at that time. He had no intention, of course, of supporting Olin with anything more than money against King Danube, if Danube was even thinking of moving against Olin overtly, which Douan thought absurd. But on the surface, at least, it all seemed plausible, and by embellishing the events of Honce-the-Bear to the Kaliit, he had given the old man more to think about and less to dwell upon.
He glanced down at Timig and recognized that the man was deep in thought. Up to that moment, Douan had known that Timig was angry that only half of his warriors could march on their road to revenge, but now, with a few well-aimed remarks, Douan had him questioning even sending that many. For the Chezhou-Lei, proud as they were and concerned with their honor, garnered that honor, above all else, by protecting Yatol’s Chezru priests and strict order.
Yakim Douan feared no move by Danube, against him or even against Abbot Olin. Queen Jilseponie was no firebrand seeking conquest, from all the information that Daween Kusaad had sent back. In fact, she was rarely even in the Castle in Ursal at that time, for winter was on in full in the northern kingdom, in their God’s Year 842, and kindhearted Jilseponie was out every day among the poor and the sick.
She and her husband were no threat.
But Kaliit Timig didn’t have to know that.
Agradeleous sat on a termite mound, sharpening his claws—and even in this humanoid form, they were formidable!—on a large rock he had found, and looking none-too-happy, as usual.
“Do you think that he will put those weapons to use someday soon?” Cazzira asked Juraviel, the two of them sitting across the way.
Juraviel shrugged, but in truth, it was a fear that had been bubbling inside of him for a long, long time. Ever since they had first come out of the mountains, when Agradeleous had reverted to his natural behemoth form and stretched his great wings in the mountain air, Juraviel had worked tirelessly to keep the dragon calm. For to the beast, all of the creatures about them—the humans included, and perhaps even particularly—were nothing more than potential meals, or outlets for his innate aggression. So far, Agradeleous had behaved himself well, with not a single human kill, as far as either of the elves knew. But of late, as the weeks had dragged to months and as the wind across the steppes had become uncomfortably cold, often with stinging hail or snow, the dragon’s patience had seemed on the wane.
Of late, Agradeleous seemed to be spending more time off to the side of the encampments, and often flexing his formidable, sinewy muscles, or sharpening those killing claws.
Juraviel understood the dragon’s frustration. His own frustration came from the lack of any real information about Brynn. One time of the many when he had eavesdropped on the conversations of unsuspecting humans, he had heard references to this mysterious Jhesta Tu mystic and the supposed rescue of the warrior woman from the battlefield outside of Dharyan, but other than that, he had learned nothing of any value. For Agradeleous, the frustration was even easier to sort out. The dragon had slept in peace for so many years, and when he had decided to accompany the elves to the surface, he had done so with the intention of finding great adventure. Thus far, at least, that had hardly been the case.
Cazzira’s question echoed ominously to Juraviel in the context of that realization. On a whim, Agradeleous could level any of the many villages they had seen. It would take a trained army, powerfully outfitted, to bring down the dragon; among the four ancient races of Corona, only the demon dactyls were more individually powerful, and their might came from a combination of magic and physical strength. Even the demons could not match the sheer physical muscle of a dragon. Juraviel had never seen one before he had encountered Agradeleous, and though he had heard the stories of the ancient wurms told over and over again, that one moment when Agradeleous had come out of the tunnel and stretched his great wings had overwhelmed him. He could hardly imagine the devastation this one might cause if he became enraged.
Or bored.
Juraviel glanced across to the dragon, and it seemed to him to hold too much strength and energy within his current form, as if he would just explode back into his greater shape.
The elf was somewhat relieved a short while later, then, when a campfire appeared in the distance. Cazzira noticed it first and quietly motioned to Juraviel, but before the two could come up with any plan that might engage Agradeleous without bringing him dangerously close to the human camp, the dragon, too, spotted the distant light.
“Let us go and see those who would share the land with us,” Agradeleous said too eagerly, and the dragon took a loping stride away.
“Better if I go alone, or with Cazzira,” Juraviel quickly replied and the dragon stopped and spun about, a slight hiss escaping his mouth.
“At first,” the elf quickly explained. “Let us catch them unawares, that they will be more truthful. If they have anything of interest to reveal, we will come back for you.”
“If they have anything of interest to reveal, they will tell it to me,” Agradeleous answered, and he started away at a fast walk, then a loping trot, and Juraviel and Cazzira had to run flat out to keep up.
Agradeleous stopped outside the light of that fire and was not immediately noticed, for the ten men sitting about the flames were engaged in a boisterous conversation.
“We cannot go back to any town!” one protested. “Don’t you think the Wraps will be looking for us? And what a fine prize our heads would make!”
“We cannot stay out here with no food and no wagons to rob,” a second argued. “I’d rather die fighting Wraps than freeze and starve out here where only the buzzards will find our rotting corpses!”
“Then you should have died with the rest at Dharyan!” the first man shot back.
“Not that again!” several cried at once, and one continued, “Are we to spend all our days thinking back to that cursed place?”
Out in the darkness, Agradeleous snapped a fiery gaze over Juraviel. “You want answers, and so you shall have them!” he said in his rumbling inhuman voice, and it was loud enough to halt the conversation in the encampment, with several men leaping up and a couple even lifting their weapons.
How they fell all over each other when the huge bipedal lizard walked right into their ca
mp, his wings tucked in tight to his back, his small tail trailing.
One or two froze in terror, one or two screamed out and turned to flee, but these were To-gai-ru warriors here, and before Agradeleous could utter any sort of explanation, several came at him hard, weapons slashing.
Agradeleous didn’t retreat an inch, but rather, charged forward suddenly, into the largest concentration of opponents, four men charging shoulder to shoulder. Oblivious to their puny weapons, the dragon slammed in, scattering them, slamming them to the ground. One sword hooked under the dragon’s scaled breast, but Agradeleous just snapped his hand in and grabbed it across the blade, tearing it from the man’s grasp, then altered the angle of his rush and lowered his shoulder, smashing that man down below him.
And then he kicked the prone man, launching him through the air for a dozen feet.
The dragon spun and squeezed the sword, then threw it to the ground, swinging his hand across to slap aside a spear thrusting for his torso.
From his left, a heavy axe swooped in at his neck.
Agradeleous roared and accepted the hit, which did no damage against his superb armor, and then his powerful legs twitched, launching him right into the axe-wielder, the impact knocking the man back and down.
But not to the ground, for the dragon’s hand shot out, engulfing the man’s face, and with strength that mocked the warriors, Agradeleous lifted the kicking and thrashing man up into the air.
“Do you wish to speak with me, or should I just kill you all?” the dragon roared, and with his free hand, he caught the swinging arm of another swordsman, and then, with a flick of his wrist, sent the man flying away, head over heels.
“Well?” the dragon demanded, and when he roared, he tensed, and his hand closed a bit on the head of the man he held high, bringing forth a pitiful squeal.
The remaining To-gai-ru held back, circling, weapons drawn, but it was obvious that none wanted to advance.
“No!” came a cry from behind, and the already overwhelmed warriors turned to see two more strange creatures rushing into their firelight. “These are not our enemies!” Belli’mar Juraviel shouted at the dragon. “They are To-gai-ru, kin of Brynn Dharielle!”
“Brynn?” more than one man cried, obviously recognizing the name.
“Were you at Dharyan?” the dragon bellowed, and he gave his prisoner another involuntary shake.
“What do you know—” one of the To-gai-ru started to say, but Agradeleous cut him short.
“Were you at Dharyan?” the dragon boomed, so loudly that the roar echoed off into the darkness, so powerfully that his voice hit the speaking To-gai-ru like a mighty wind, forcing him back a step.
“We were there,” he replied. “All of us.”
“Shut your mouth!” another of the To-gai-ru warriors cried at him. “You’ll condemn us to the Wraps!”
“If we were Behrenese, you would already be dead,” Juraviel remarked. “But we are not, and if you rode with Brynn Dharielle, then you are no enemies of ours.” As he finished, he looked sternly at Agradeleous.
The dragon put the man down and let go of him, and the poor soul stood there for a moment, staring back at the lizard creature. Then he simply fell over.
“Tell us everything,” Agradeleous demanded. “A good tale will make me forget that I am hungry for man-flesh!”
The To-gai-ru to whom the dragon spoke blanched so profoundly that his sudden lack of color was clear to Juraviel and Cazzira even in the dim firelight. Juraviel was quick to his side.
“We are not your enemies,” the elf said reassuringly. “And perhaps we are your allies. Pray tell us of that awful day, and of Brynn Dharielle, the warrior, my friend.”
It took a long while to settle the camp enough for the man and a few of his bolder companions to relate the story of the disaster at Dharyan, and many of the details were sketchy at best, and often contradictory.
But on one point, there was some agreement. Brynn Dharielle had not been slain—not on the battlefield, at least, though none had any idea if the wounds she had taken there had subsequently proved fatal. She had been taken away on that marvelous pony of hers, by Pagonel, the Jhesta Tu mystic, to where, they did not know.
They did confirm, however, that there was a place far to the south, in a rocky, mountainous land, that the Jhesta Tu called home, a retreat called the Walk of Clouds.
“A tale to calm the hunger of a ravenous beast,” Juraviel decided, definitively, before Agradeleous could pass any judgment. “Let us beg your forgiveness for our intrusion and the unfortunate confrontation.”
“They started it!” Agradeleous protested, and all the men cowered a bit at the power of the voice.
“I pray that your wounds will heal and that we will all soon view this meeting as fortunate—for us, for Brynn Dharielle, and for all of To-gai,” the elf went on, ignoring the interruption, and he rose to leave and motioned for his friends to follow.
“Enough of hiding in shadows and hoping the humans will say what we need to hear,” Agradeleous said when they had moved back into the darkness away from the camp, his tone showing that he was quite proud of himself. He ended with a wicked chuckle, one that reminded his two companions of the potential catastrophe that was Agradeleous.
Belli’mar Juraviel boldly walked before the dragon, cutting him off. “Never again!” he warned, wagging a finger at the beast.
Agradeleous regarded him with a somewhat bemused expression.
“These are not our enemies—they are the hope of Brynn’s destiny, and woe to us all if your violence turns To-gai from us, and from Brynn!”
“They are just humans,” Agradeleous said with a mocking laugh. “To-gai-ru, Behrenese—ha! You speak as if there is a difference.”
“In this case, there is.”
“Only to you, little elf,” said the dragon. “To me, they are an amusement and nothing more—unless we are speaking of a meal to warm my belly!”
Juraviel glanced over to see Cazzira giving him a concerned look, and one that showed she certainly understood the dragon’s reasoning.
“I have your word on this, Agradeleous,” Juraviel reminded. “And I hold you to it.”
“Be silent, elf, else I dismiss our compact altogether,” the dragon retorted. “They came at me with weapons drawn. Besides yourselves, they are the first creatures to do that and live to reconsider their course. You should be praising me for my restraint.”
It took Juraviel a few moments fully to digest the weight of the dragon’s remarks, the threat of breaking the compact, the only real assurance that he had that Agradeleous wouldn’t rain terror upon the world, terror as profound as that wrought by Bestesbulzibar. And that last statement, he recognized, was really a demand.
“You did well in not killing any,” Juraviel conceded.
“I did well in getting the information, something that you have tried and failed to do for weeks and weeks,” Agradeleous added.
Juraviel had to admit that they had indeed made progress, discerning a more definitive possibility and path. But he knew, too, the unique nature of this encounter, with a group of rebels out on the empty steppes. They could ill afford any more outbursts from Agradeleous, and they had much more information to gather.
But he had to give Agradeleous this moment, because the dragon wasn’t asking, he was demanding.
And Belli’mar Juraviel was keenly aware of the fact that he had no power to refuse any of Agradeleous’ demands.
Chapter 24
Ancient Enemies
THEY CROSSED THE HOT DESERT SANDS, SPEAR TIPS AND ARMOR GLITTERING IN the unrelenting sun. The mounted Chezhou-Lei led the way, with the Jacintha soldiers marching behind. An army of servants, including many To-gai-ru slaves, came behind them, bearing the armor for the elite warriors’ horses, and with wagons and wagons of supplies to get the marching force from city to distant city across the empty sands. At the very head of the column rode Wan Atenn, proud and fierce and dwarfing the man, who was no warrior, ridi
ng beside him.
Merwan Ma did not really become comfortable with riding throughout all the days of that journey. He had never even been on a horse until Chezru Douan had unexpectedly ordered him to go along and bear witness to the glorious march, a command that had surely stunned him and all of the others at the great temple of Jacintha. Rarely was the Chezru Chieftain’s personal attendant allowed outside the temple. He wasn’t to go all the way to the Mountains of Fire, though, for the Chezru Chieftain would not take such a gamble with so important a man. Rather, he was to stop at Yatol Peridan’s principal city of Gortha, where Peridan’s private ship would sail him back to Jacintha.
Merwan Ma tried to make the best of the tedium, attempting to engage Wan Atenn in conversation throughout the days. At first, he had been met with a polite but cold detachment, but when he had finally turned his chatter from exaltations of the glory of the Chezru Chieftain to honest and curious questions about the Chezhou-Lei and their ancient feud with the Jhesta Tu, the proud warrior actually began to respond.
“Once, before the advent of the truth, we were of the same order,” Wan Atenn explained one brutally hot day, the caravan barely inching along. “Those who began the order of Chezhou-Lei were masters of the Jhesta Tu.”
“But who were the Jhesta Tu in those ancient days?” Merwan Ma asked, for he had little knowledge of this chapter of Behrenese history.
“Priests. Defenders of the secluded villages from the bandits who roamed the lawless land.” Wan Atenn looked over at Merwan Ma and nodded. “Yatol gave order to the land, as the ancestors of the Chezhou-Lei understood, but most of the others of the ancient order of Jhesta Tu would not accept the truth of Yatol.”
“And so began the feud,” Merwan Ma reasoned.
“And so came the dominance of the Chezru and the Chezhou-Lei, with the Jhesta Tu in retreat to a land even less hospitable than the sands of the desert,” Wan Atenn replied, his voice the same even and confident tone that the Chezhou-Lei always seemed to possess. “The truth has won out. Every now and then, we of the Chezhou-Lei must remind our foolish brethren of that.”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 153
