Soon after, the unknown Shepherd Pagonel had noted, Merwan Ma, was named by the Chezhou-Lei leader as governor of the city.
Several days went by uneventfully, and it was obvious to Pagonel that the Behrenese army—the bulk of it, anyway—wouldn’t remain in Dharyan for long. The mystic waited anxiously for the advance scouts to return, wondering if Brynn’s preparations for the deception had paid off. Soon after leaving the city, heading south, Brynn had sent many riders back to To-gai, where they were instructed to find as many of their compatriots as possible and begin a long procession—walking a wide loop—in sight of several outposter settlements, making it appear as if Brynn’s army had headed back to the west and melted into the grassy steppes.
She was counting on the Behrenese overconfidence again, with them convinced that the inferior To-gai-ru knew that they could not sustain any kind of a war against Behren.
During those days of waiting, Pagonel positioned himself so that he would be working near the building that had been designated as the command post of Dharyan, where both Governor Merwan Ma and the Chezhou-Lei leader, Shauntil, held audience. He couldn’t get into the place, not openly at least, for only selected slave women were allowed inside, but he made certain to befriend many of those women, so that he could continue his spying.
Finally, late one afternoon, a rider returned from the plateau and was taken for an immediate audience with the leaders.
The guards overseeing the work of Pagonel and others hardly seemed to take notice of the To-gai-ru, for they were as anxious for word as was Pagonel. They drifted away from the slaves, never looking back.
Pagonel slipped off to the side gradually, then darted behind a pile of rubble and down an alleyway at the side of the command building. With a glance around to make sure that no sentries were in sight, the mystic fell into his Chi and lifted his spirit, then easily scaled the building, moving beside a window that overlooked the main audience hall, where Merwan Ma, Carwan Pestle, and several Chezhou-Lei, including Shauntil, had gathered to hear the news from the scout.
“Of course they ran,” one of the Chezhou-Lei was saying. “That is their cowardly way. They knew that they could not hope to hold Dharyan against the might of Jacintha, and so they fled to their steppes.”
“They passed Dancala Grysh only a couple of weeks after taking Dharyan,” the scout reported, and Pagonel smiled in admiration of Brynn’s cunning deception. “They could be anywhere in the steppes now, or even disbanded.”
“They have not disbanded,” Shauntil insisted. “They follow this leader, blindly and to their doom. It is their way.”
“I was here when Ashwarawu attacked,” said another of the Chezhou-Lei. “Shauntil is correct in his assessment. They are like pack dogs, the To-gai-ru.”
“We will sweep the steppes,” Shauntil declared. “We will catch up with this Dragon of To-gai and give the To-gai-ru the harshest of lessons. When we leave, there will not be enough To-gai-ru men left to mount another attack against Behren.”
Some movement below alerted Pagonel that he had to get down, and he started to do so, but then heard Shauntil gruffly dismiss the other Chezhou-Lei, the scout, and Carwan Pestle, pointedly telling Merwan Ma that they needed to speak alone.
Pagonel flattened himself against the wall, not wanting to miss out on this private conversation. But as a Behrenese soldier walked along the alleyway below him, he knew that the chances were great that he would be spotted.
So he leaped out, diving down the fifteen feet atop the unsuspecting soldier. He flew right past the man, hooking him about the head as he did, and he immediately rolled about, his momentum snapping the poor soldier’s neck instantly.
The two went down in a heap, with Pagonel rolling away, over and over to absorb the blow. He came back quickly, dragging the soldier behind a pile of rubble in the alleyway, then stripping the body of its uniform and donning it himself.
When he got back to the window, the audience hall was empty. Pagonel moved along the ledge, then climbed again to the top floor of the three-story structure. Then some arguing guided him along, farther to the rear of the building, where he peeked in around a window.
There stood Merwan Ma, against one wall, his hands upraised, a look of sheer terror on his face. A few feet away stood Shauntil, a dead To-gai-ru slave on the floor behind him, a bloody dagger in his hand, pointed toward the new governor.
“You serve the Chezru Chieftain!” Merwan Ma cried.
Shauntil smiled wickedly. “Carwan Pestle will govern Dharyan until a suitable Yatol replacement can be found, while I assume the mantle of Governor General of the region, and all of To-gai.”
“Pestle can have it!” Merwan Ma conceded, quite willingly. “I only came out on the command of our common leader, and have no desire …” His words trailed away as a knowing, even more wicked, grin widened on the fierce Chezhou-Lei’s face.
Outside the window, Pagonel’s expression screwed up with curiosity, for it seemed obvious to him that the Chezru Chieftain, for some reason, had sent this poor Shepherd out there to be murdered.
“I have served him for many years,” Merwan Ma pleaded as the Chezhou-Lei approached. “I am his choice to oversee Transcendence!”
That last word came out with a gasp as Shauntil plunged the dagger into Merwan Ma’s belly.
“But you were murdered, Governor Merwan Ma, by a To-gai-ru slave, who was angered because you ordered her brother launched by catapult into the city,” the warrior explained, and he pumped his arm, stabbing the poor man again and again.
Shauntil stepped back and Merwan Ma collapsed to the floor.
“Yes, it hurts,” the warrior teased. “But I could not kill you efficiently, for, after all, you were killed not by a Chezhou-Lei, but by a poor, frantic slave woman.” With that, Shauntil tossed the knife to the floor between them and started for the door.
He paused, though, considering the blood on the robes he had put on, and with hardly a thought, he stripped the outer layer off and tossed it into the hearth, where the dying ember reignited about it.
He looked back to Merwan Ma, then left.
Pagonel dropped back down to the alleyway, his hands working the wall through his descent deftly, so that he landed lightly on his feet. He rushed to retrieve the dead soldier, knowing that time was of the essence, then hoisted the man on his back, moved to the base of the window, and climbed back up once more, this time moving through the open window and into the room.
A soft groan from Merwan Ma told him that the man was still alive, though barely.
Pagonel stripped off the injured Shepherd’s bloody clothing and tended the wound as quickly as he could, then put his own clothes on Merwan Ma, and put the Shepherd’s clothing on the soldier. He took up the knife and stabbed the dead man in the gut, then placed him as Merwan Ma had been placed.
He rushed to the hearth and pulled out an unburned edge of the robe, then held it to the embers and blew on them until it ignited. He brought his brand to a torn tapestry at the side of the hearth and set it ablaze, the flames spreading rapidly along the dried tapestry and old, dry wood. The mystic tossed the still-burning brand at the chest of the dead soldier, wincing as the fire began to catch. With a deep and steadying breath, Pagonel gathered Merwan Ma across his shoulders.
He heard voices on the stairs, then a shout of, “Fire!”
It was a movement that only a Jhesta Tu, and only a master of that order, could ever have accomplished. Pagonel ran full speed to the open window, reached into himself to buoy his body magically, then leaped out, across the alleyway, flying fifteen feet to the next roof. He sprinted across that roof, hardly slowing, then leaped again, right to the top of the south wall, and then, hardly slowing, hopped over that wall and fell the fifteen feet to the sand below, landing as softly as he could, bending as he hit to cushion the blow for the man draped about his shoulders.
Without delay, hearing shouts from at least one soldier who had spotted him—or had spotted something—the my
stic laid Merwan Ma out straight at the very base of the wall and fell down beside him, working frantically to cover as much of them as possible with loose sand.
He heard more cries from above, but they weren’t directed at him, he realized, but at the fire that was now burning more furiously.
Pagonel lay very still, concentrating on his Chi. He brought his hands to Merwan Ma’s wounds and sent his hot life energy into them, transferring his strength, his healing, to the near-dead Shepherd.
The fire burned into the night, and cries of “Murder!” resonated about the streets. Pagonel could only listen with helpless horror as the Behrenese took out their anger over the murder of the new Governor of Dharyan on the other To-gai-ru slaves.
Gradually, the screaming died away, replaced by the quiet stillness of midnight.
Pagonel pulled himself from the sand, then lifted Merwan Ma across his shoulders, and in truth, he wasn’t even certain if the man was still alive.
And then he ran, out into the darkness, using the stars to guide him. He ran all through the night, and most of the next day, as well, pausing only periodically to use his healing energy on the gravely wounded Shepherd.
That night, he ran on again, tirelessly, stopping only when he heard a command to halt, issued in a telling melodic voice.
Only then did the mystic allow himself to realize his exhaustion, and he slumped into the sand, lowering Merwan Ma beside him.
“A fine gift,” Belli’mar Juraviel said to him when he awoke sometime later.
The mystic craned his neck to see Merwan Ma, wrapped in blankets across the small fire, with Cazzira sitting beside him and Agradeleous off in the background.
“It may be,” was all that the exhausted mystic could reply at that time, and he lowered his head and went back to sleep, knowing that he would need all of his strength and more if he was to have any chance of keeping Merwan Ma alive the next day.
It was late in the day before he awoke once more, to find Cazzira standing guard over Merwan Ma.
“Juraviel and Agradeleous flew out before the dawn, to keep watch over Dharielle,” she explained.
“Dharyan, once more,” Pagonel corrected, and he pulled himself up and moved toward the injured man.
“Eat first,” Cazzira offered, pointing to the side, to a steaming small pot, and Pagonel veered toward it. “Juraviel believes that the Behrenese will move soon.”
“Very soon,” the mystic replied. “Into To-gai in pursuit of the Dragon of To-gai and her army.”
Cazzira laughed.
“Who is he?” she asked a few moments later, pointing to the injured man.
“His name is Merwan Ma,” the mystic explained. “An attendant of the Chezru Chieftain, named governor of Dharyan and then nearly murdered, on orders from the Chezru Chieftain.”
Cazzira’s look was predictably puzzled.
“A Chezhou-Lei cut him down.”
“A rogue act, perhaps?”
Pagonel was shaking his head before she ever finished the question. “They are unquestioningly loyal to the Chezru Chieftain. Never would a Chezhou-Lei take such an action of his own initiative, not when it involved a man so closely tied to Chezru Douan.”
“But why?”
“That is what I hope to find out,” the mystic replied, and he took another sip of the stew, then wiped his mouth and moved beside Merwan Ma, falling right back into doyan du cad ray chi, “the warm healing hands.”
Belli’mar Juraviel and Agradeleous returned that night, bringing the welcome news that the bulk of the Behrenese army had marched west and were even then scaling the narrow passes of the plateau divide into To-gai.
“It was all that I could manage in keeping Agradeleous from attacking them,” the elf admitted a while later, when the dragon, after transforming back into his humanoid form, stalked off from the camp. “A killing rage grows within him. I know not how long we, and Brynn, will be able to control his fury.”
“Because he hates Behrenese?” Cazzira asked.
“Because that is the nature of dragons,” Pagonel interjected. “They are creatures of destruction, usually of random destruction. It is remarkable that you and Brynn have placated him enough to keep him in line thus far. Soon enough, I fear, we will see the true fury of Agradeleous.”
Belli’mar Juraviel looked out into the darkness, where the beast was out even then seeking some creature to tear and devour. A shudder coursed his spine.
Chapter 28
With All the Weapons at Her Disposal
RUNTLY PLOWED THROUGH THE SOFT SAND, LABORING FOR BREATH BUT, LIKE THE three hundred To-gai ponies running beside him, not slowing. The feint against the walled city of Pruda had gone perfectly, with very few To-gai-ru lost to the city’s defensive volleys.
And predictably, before the fleeing To-gai-ru had gone far, Pruda’s gates had swung wide and their garrison of several hundred, along with a seemingly equal number of peasants, all eager to join in the slaughter, had come forth, some riding horses, some on camels, and many others just running behind, brandishing everything from fine swords to farming implements.
Brynn brought her riders along the base of one huge dune, then turned about it and paused, all riders fitting arrows to their bows.
On came the lead Behrenese pursuers, and the To-gai-ru kicked their mounts into another run. Many of the skilled riders of the steppes turned back in the saddle, trusting their mounts to run true, and began letting fly their arrows.
The Behrenese pursuit halted abruptly as the front ranks thinned. Brynn and her riders heard the calls for retreat, for a return to Pruda. When she looked back and confirmed that the Behrenese had broken off pursuit, she halted her force, and gradually turned it about, taking care to send spotters out wide to make sure that their enemies were indeed heading back to the safety of their walls.
Walls they would never reach, Brynn knew, for as she had led her small force and the pursuing Behrenese out into the desert, the bulk of her army had filtered in behind, taking up a position in front of Pruda.
When Brynn and her riders caught up to the retreating Behrenese, they found them stopped in their tracks, desperately trying to form into some semblance of a defensive formation, for they faced a force thrice their size, and one comprised of skilled, veteran To-gai-ru warriors.
Brynn had hoped it would go like this, with the Pruda garrison destroyed right before the city’s wall, in clear view of those terrified defenders remaining within Pruda. She noted the leaders of the doomed Behrenese soldiers huddling, likely discussing whether or not they should ask for quarter.
But that was not to be. Not there and not then.
Before their huddle had produced anything at all, Brynn brought Flamedancer up high above her head and cried out for the charge.
Showers of arrows led the way as the To-gai-ru encircled the force.
“They should have tried a charge straight through the line, back to their gates,” Brynn remarked to those around her. “Their cowardice has cost them all hope.”
Another volley of arrows rained on the Behrenese, and then another, and then came the charge. Even among the Behrenese soldiers, few offered any fight, for they were all too busy trying to scramble away, trying to find some hole in the To-gai-ru line to get back to their city.
Some did manage to get through, but of the force of nearly a thousand who had left Pruda in search of a glorious victory, more than nine hundred soon lay dead or dying on the bloodstained sands.
And a To-gai-ru army of four thousand now stood before the thinly manned gates.
Merwan Ma blinked open his eyes, quickly moving his hand up to shield them from the glare of the hot late-afternoon sun.
He heard the noise almost immediately, but it took him a long while to connect the sounds to the truth of them.
They were screams of terror.
The battered Shepherd forced himself up to his elbows, wincing with pain all the way. He didn’t know where he was, but he saw the white walls of a Behrenese
city in the distance, swarming forms all about it, and lines of thick black smoke rising from many of the structures within.
The Shepherd’s heart sank.
“Pruda,” came a voice beside him, and he turned to see the Jhesta Tu mystic, his companion and his savior.
“Pruda?” Merwan Ma echoed, hardly able to get the name out of his mouth. “The greatest center of the arts and learning in all the kingdom. Oh, what are your friends doing?”
“They are fighting to be free.”
“Pruda is not a warrior city!”
“Obviously,” Pagonel dryly replied.
“They cannot destroy it,” Merwan Ma remarked, his words turning into a pained grunt as he tried unsuccessfully to sit up, only to wind up flat on his back, crying softly.
He felt the hot hands of Pagonel on his wounds a moment later, and though they surely brought relief, he tried to slap them away. “Savage!” he said. “Heathen barbarian!”
“But not one who would murder his supposed ally,” the mystic remarked, and that notion surely defeated Merwan Ma’s attempted resistance.
“Do you think this savagery?” the mystic asked.
“Can you name it any other thing?” came the incredulous reply.
“Do you think it savagery on a scale anywhere close to what the emissaries of your Chezru Chieftain have forced upon the people of the steppes?”
Merwan Ma’s generous lips grew very thin.
“You do not believe me.”
“My master is a generous and wise man,” the obedient Shepherd insisted with as much conviction as he could muster. “He is the God-Voice of Behren, who speaks to and for Yatol.”
Pagonel dropped a dagger beside the prone man. “Then do his bidding,” he remarked.
Merwan Ma stared from the dagger to the mystic. “A challenge?”
“A challenge to your conscience and your faith, perhaps,” said Pagonel. “Your God-Voice wished you dead, so take up the dagger and fulfill his plans for you. I promise that I will not try to heal you once you have plunged the dagger into your heart.”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 161
