Tanza

by Amanda Greenslade

  After night had fallen Tyba allowed us to consume a small meal. In the darkness I could hardly see what I was eating and I only managed to eat a few bites. My stomach ached with tension. We couldn’t even look up to see the stars because Ciera’s protective roof-shroud was still there, blocking us from eyes above.

  I kept watch on the small amount of sky that was visible around us. Because of the intensity of my vigil, I was the first to spot the dragon. It flew in a backwards and forwards pattern as if scanning systematically. Our shroud was safely within the boundary of the 30 towers, but if the dragon got on the right angle, it might be able to see us between the sandwiching shrouds. It zigzagged east to west, moving ever northward, closer and closer to our position.

  ‘Tyba, we have a Zeika scout closing in,’ I said, never taking my eyes off the barely-visible shape.

  ‘I don’t see anything. Jigm, can your Rada-kin confirm?’

  S.R. Jigm, who was sitting nearby, immediately stood up. His Rada-kin, Kotor, gave a warning growl. I climbed back into the battle-seat, daring to hope it might be Ciera and I who got to chase down the enemy. Such danger would be preferable to this mind-numbing waiting.

  ‘Right,’ Tyba said, ‘Aerilaya, Mnason, Assos: kill that scout.’

  ‘Yes sire,’ Aerilaya responded. The three Anzaii and their three guardians ran to their Sleffion-kin and mounted up. Within moments all six skyearls and their riders had leapt from the side of the shroud and winged in a big circle to intercept the Zeika conjuration. As soon as they made themselves visible, the scout dived towards the ground and we lost sight of them all.

  Tyba began pacing restlessly. He hadn’t eaten anything either, and I sensed that he wouldn’t take his eyes off the battle right now, even if someone put a sizzling hot salmon right in front of him.

  The chilled night air poked its cold fingers down the back of my neck. Sweat broke out on my face and back, causing me to shiver. Ciera’s lurch of alarm reached me before my eyes picked out the shape of a dragon and rider descending through the clouds. As soon as it came level with the shroud it would see us.

  Ciera acted first, with me barely having time to gather my wits before he was diving off the shroud. The dragon wheeled at the sight of him. Has the Zeika seen the strike force?

  We pursued arrow-straight, but the much smaller dragon was more agile in the air. I reached for one of the bronze knives, but in this darkness and at this speed I doubted I could do anything useful with it. Ciera drew one of his spears from the case and pitched it ineffectually at the dragon.

  The dragon fled north, avoiding the archery and spear range of the seven towers we passed. I barely spared a thought for the strike force we’d left behind—Ciera and I could handle one tyrak. When it crossed the river and reached the trees, it dived for cover, knowing Ciera could not follow. Thanks to the imprinting I’d received, I knew that forest well, so I knew it was too dense even for a dragon to fly. We landed so suddenly that the ground shook and whirls of dust rose into the air. Ciera was puffing and enraged. His mental command to destroy the Zeika propelled me forwards.

  Tiaro’s thoughts were with me as I ran into the cover of the trees. My heart thundered in my ears. Broken branches revealed the path of the fleeing Zeika. He knew he had seen something important but, without wave communication, he must get back to his fellows to share his information. In the darkness, my only chance of finding him was by scent. I crouched to all fours, keeping my head up and reaching for my black wolf form. Gradually my senses became clearer. The night seemed brighter and the smells of the forest came alive around me.

  I pursued the Zeika, buoyed on by Ciera’s restless pacing behind me. The Zeika had climbed into a tree not far from the end of the trail of broken branches. My hackles prickled at the smell of Zeika magic in the air. A dragon rider was no less than level four in Zeika initiation, a conjurer, scryer and expert warder and flamer. At any moment another of his bestial conjurations could burst from the darkness to slice me open.

  I opened my mind to Krii’s power, petitioning Krii to give me discernment. A crackling bolt of green fire lanced towards me. The leaves sizzled and popped behind me, the flames catching despite the moist, green interior of the branches.

  I circled the tree, watching the Zeika become more uncertain. If he vacated his own senses to conjure a creature now, his own body would be left vulnerable for just enough time for me to kill him. He gripped the branch he was sitting on with both hands and shimmied higher.

  I growled, finding that it soon became the snarling, guttural challenge of a full-grown icetiger. I was not as big as Rekala in this form, but the muscles of my legs and jaws were primed and strong. Better, I could climb. The Zeika flamed in my direction.

  I was already moving. With thick claws sinking into the dry bark I hauled my weight up in three lurches. My jaws clamped over the Zeika’s leg as he tried to climb higher. Flames scorched my ears and whiskers, but I climbed a little higher and savaged the man’s face with long, razor-sharp claws. Distracted, his flaming ceased. Getting my teeth around his neck, I snuffed my enemy’s life with a single bite.

  The taste of the blood shocked me; like warm metal, but sweet and refreshing. I let the body drop from the tree before following it to the ground. It was tempting to fall upon it and feed, but something about that made me hesitate.

  ‘Enough, Talon,’ Tiaro advised.

  Halduronlei whispered through the waves, as if borne on the wind that murmured in the trees around us. The sadness of its melody immediately recalled me to my human self and the tragedy of the lost soul I had slain. I hunkered low to the ground in my natural form retching and trying to scrape the Zeika’s blood from my mouth. My stomach cramped horribly and pain burned inside me.

  Finally I vomited.

  I lay there for some time, trying to recover.

  Tiaro led me out of the forest to the stream we had crossed in pursuit of the Zeika. Ciera watched silently, listening to the chimes and strings of Halduronlei that Tiaro now brought to our memory. It made me so mournful, as if reminding me of the bigger picture of the world we lived in. Jaria destroyed. Tanza in a serious war. Zeikas swelling in numbers and ranks, flooding into the rest of Chryne like a torrent of poisoned water. I tried to clean the blood from my hands and clothing, but it had already dried red and waxy. My stomach clenched again, even though my nerves had calmed.

  Poison! The blood-red tips of the poison-dipped arrows floated to the surface of my mind. Ciera and Tiaro immediately saw the connection I had made. Mildew was white, not red. The mildew that had been found on those food barrels had been poison; a failed attempt to wipe out the strike force! And they’d tried it again. The stomach pain and sweating I’d experienced wasn’t nervousness at all. It was poison. Thankfully the little I had consumed had been regurgitated already, but what about the others?

  ‘Amadeus,’ I called out so suddenly through the waves that I didn’t stop to question whether I could reach someone else’s Sleffion-kin or not.

  Amadeus’ soul-strong presence reared up in the waves. His solidarity with Tyba was incredible; so tightly were they linked that Tyba’s emotions blurred with the skyearl’s. Despair!

  ‘Talon, the strike force has been poisoned!’

  ‘I know,’ I cried out. Ciera and Tiaro were with me in the waves, talking all at once.

  How could this happen? Who poisoned the strike force? Are you well? Were the Zeikas behind it? How many have been affected? What are the Zeikas doing now? Were the guardians for the lead squadron sickening as well?

  ‘Those that still can are forcing themselves to throw up. Others have been carried to the healer already. Some have already died, very soon after you left us.’ Amadeus’ words carried the weight of a sobbing heart with them.

  Viserion! I thought. I paced back and forth, muddying my boots on the shore of the river.

  ‘Where is Corypha?’ I asked.

  Amadeus did not reply for a long time. I chewed water-reeds from the side of the river
to clean the bile and blood taste from my mouth. When Amadeus finally contacted me it was only to say that nobody had seen Corypha for some time.

  ‘He’s a Wavekeeper,’ I realised, shocked by my own thoughts, even as conviction of their truth struck home. ‘He’s trying to kill all the Anzaii.’

  ‘Why?’ Amadeus demanded—and I almost heard Tyba’s exasperated tones. ‘We may be the only hope Tanza has for winning this war.’

  ‘They don’t believe that,’ Ciera replied. ‘The Wavekeeper cult believes that Anzaii magic is from Zei, not Krii. They believe it corrupts the Anzaii even though we embrace them as heroes.’

  ‘Yes, yes, we have heard their wild claims,’ Amadeus replied angrily. ‘But would they really use them to justify poison and murder?’

  ‘Perhaps they see it as sacrificing a few for the greater good,’ Ciera replied, though he sent with it a clear impression of his disapproval of such an attitude.

  ‘Find Corypha,’ I ordered. ‘Do not kill him! We need to know exactly what he has set in motion before it’s too late.’

  I was aware that Tyba reserved judgment against Corypha. No matter how convinced I was, he needed more time to consider the evidence. Still, he was impressed with my quick thinking.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Amadeus asked.

  The question surprised me; I had expected them to order me back at once. For the very first time, I became aware of the taste of my own authority.

  ‘Let’s find out what Krii is capable of doing through us,’ I suggested privately to Ciera and Tiaro.

  After receiving their approval, I said to Amadeus, ‘We’re going to take down some Zeikas.’

  ‘Very well,’ Amadeus replied. ‘Tyba says it’s chaos here. You may engage the enemy. We’ll have Jett fly out and meet you.’

  I had almost forgotten about Jett.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied.

  ‘Ciera, be careful,’ Amadeus said. ‘You’re not invincible, even with an Astor on your back.’

  Chapter Fourteen—Entrapment

  I turned and ran for Ciera. The great skyearl crouched, tail lashing through muck and vegetation. As soon as I was fastened safely Ciera launched into the air. His body whipped sideways, wings propelling us into the sky with terrifying effort.

  We shot upwards, the cold air embracing us. Ciera drank in the clouds we passed through. We burst through a particularly thick layer of stratus clouds and hovered above the moonlit plain of white. Stars spattered the sky above us, breathtaking in their splendour.

  In the distance, greenish smoke billowed around a network of hastily-formed shrouds. Skyearls circled and dived. Some paused on shrouds momentarily before launching after another dragon. The deathly-dance was taking its toll on the flesh-and-blood Tanzan army. Whenever a dragon was dispelled, there was soon another to take its place. Even though dozens of Zeikas were falling to their deaths, there never seemed to be enough Tanzans to completely wipe them from the sky above Condii. Some conjurers weren’t even mounted on their dragons. They were skilled enough to direct them from the ground outside the city.

  ‘They can’t be too far away,’ Ciera commented, straining to hover in one place. ‘Even the most advanced far-conjurers can’t be more than about two miles away. We are already one and a half miles high.’

  A skyearl and rider approached us from the south west, Jett and his Sleffion-kin Ptemais, a green and red skyearl a bit larger than a draughthorse. Naltoch flew in a circle above them, keeping watch in all directions, including above.

  ‘I’m glad you made it,’ I shouted.

  Ptemais pulled up next to Ciera and landed on a puff of shroud he created. Ciera set down gingerly and stretched his aching wings. Despite the provision of special buoyancy in the air from Krii, the stress of flight still took its toll on his body, especially when there was no wind to bolster him.

  ‘I hadn’t eaten yet,’ Jett began, ‘when the first Anzaii started retching. They always get their food first. It seems that somebody knew that and specifically wanted our Anzaii to die.’

  ‘Corypha,’ I growled.

  ‘What—you know who it was? How?’

  I told him of our conversation before we left the camp. A feeling of foreboding crept over me as I realised I had told Corypha about Sarlice and the Rada-kin. I reached for Rekala with such anxiety that she immediately stopped what she was doing and lifted her muzzle to the sky, as if reaching out to me.

  ‘Talon,’ she wailed. ‘When will you return to us?’

  ‘You are safe?’ I queried.

  ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘but not a day goes by that I don’t long to be with you.’

  ‘I’ll come for you as soon as we’ve turned back the Zeikas from Condii and Centan,’ I replied. ‘But promise me you’ll move towards Lantaid and the chasm. If something happens to me, you can escape that way; I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Very well, Rada, but what makes you so concerned all of a sudden?’

  ‘There was a traitor here, someone from that Wavekeeper cult.’

  ‘Is that the same group we encountered back in Jaria?’ Rekala asked.

  ‘Aye. The traitor here in Condii is named Corypha—he was a guardian in the strike force. Poisoned most of the Anzaii.’

  ‘That’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear that,’ she said, yowling.

  ‘It gets worse,’ I continued. ‘Before I knew he was a Wavekeeper, I told Corypha about you and Sarlice in Lantaid. It’s possible he told someone else…’

  ‘But Sarlice isn’t an Anzaii—why would the Wavekeepers care about her?’

  ‘They probably wouldn’t,’ I admitted, ‘but they might use you to get to me somehow. I was meant to be among those that got poisoned. Just promise me you’ll be wary.’

  ‘We will, Theon.’

  Her use of my real name brought a smile to my lips. Rekala demanded a report of everything that had transpired since our last wave-conversation. Jett waited patiently while I stared into space, conversing with my Rada-kin.

  ‘Tell Sarlice I think she should leave Tanza,’ I said eventually. ‘I must go. It’s not safe here.’

  I caught Rekala’s chortle as she withdrew from the waves. She doubted anything could harm me with both Ciera and Tiaro to help me. A strange sense of uselessness tailed that thought; as if she no longer felt that I needed her. I told myself I’d have time to resolve that later.

  For now we needed to locate the far-conjurers and if possible entrap them.

  ‘How do you propose to do that?’ Ciera questioned. ‘Nobody has even taught you how.’

  ‘It makes sense,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been thinking about this waverading the Wavekeepers are afraid of. In a way, Anzaii already have that power over the Zeikas.’

  ‘But Zeikas don’t use the waves,’ Ciera retorted.

  ‘They invoke demons,’ I said, thinking as I spoke through the waves. ‘And stay focused on their conjurations via some kind of spiritual communion—a link—it must be like the waves.’

  ‘And you think you can interfere with that link?’ Tiaro pondered, catching on.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  To Jett I said, ‘I’m going to catch me a dragon.’

  To his credit, he didn’t laugh or demand an explanation. He and Ptemais followed Ciera, Tiaro and I as we glided off the shroud platform. We soared straight towards the south corner of Condii where dragons and skyearls spiralled and somersaulted. Intricate patterns of smoke, shroud and flame floated high above the city.

  At least a dozen dragons were clearly visible. Still more battled above and below us. Some were protecting formations of four or five with baskets of hot coals and oil in their claws. Several of these oil-bombs were ignited with green flames and dropped. Ciera dodged to avoid one. There was nothing we could do to stop it falling down onto the barracks below.

  The emperor skyearl climbed sharply and I felt a swooping pressure in my head. We aimed directly at one of the dragons guarding a g
roup of retreating bombers. It lagged behind, surveying the area immediately around its charges. It did not have a rider. Within moments, Ciera had closed on his prey and clutched it with his foreclaws. Like a great-eagle capturing a sparrow, we then bore it to the ground. I jumped from Ciera’s back as soon as we were grounded, jarring my knees as I did so.

  My hands found the slick black hide of the dragon as Ciera fought to hold it still. With a call to Krii, I closed myself off from the real world and concentrated on the spiritual. I sought the demon that enabled the Zeika magic to take place.

  My eyes were like a torchfire, sweeping across a barren landscape too long hidden in darkness. The demon could not hide. As soon as I’d found it I sensed the tendril of awareness connecting the dragon to its conjurer.

  I plunged myself after the tendril. The dragon began to fade. Tiaro ran beside me in a form I could only describe as ‘catlike’. She chased the demon with her keen eyes and spirit-senses.

  In the spirit realm it felt as if I was running with all my strength but getting nowhere. The fleeing demon was like a glowing rope racing across the ground just out of my reach. With it went my chance to locate the Zeika who had called it. Tiaro and I stretched our stride but, always, the rope stayed ahead of us.

  ‘Krii, help us!’

  A rushing wind stirred the plains around us as we ran and the echoing howl of a wolf filled my ears. Padded footfalls sounded behind us and I turned to see the great white wolf hurtling toward and then past us. He pounced on the glowing rope and wrestled it to a halt. Like a dog presenting a half-slain creature to its master, he turned and proffered the glowing rope to me. I grasped it in both hands and yanked.

  The demon struggled in my grip, openly terrorised by the presence of the wolf. It tried to imprint random fear onto me, but Tiaro was there to fortify my resolve. I pulled the rope in, hand over hand until the enemy at its end came into view.

  A human’s presence in the waves was normally much like hearing or seeing them in real life. But here in this spirit-realm, this Zeika’s appearance was greatly diminished. Like a starving child he hunkered low to the ground in rags. Shackled and chained by the weight of his own cowardice, guilt and poor choices, the Zeika moaned in the agony of pure hatred.