by Marc Secchia
“Only her habitual devotion. Every evening, she goes to the King’s bedside and talks to him.”
“He’s like a son to her,” said Xan. “She loves him.”
“It seems more,” said Whisper.
“You’re hardly an expert on Human emotions,” Xola pointed out, with her usual delicate hammer blow to the conversational nut. “Whisper, we summoned you here because of the Sanfuri issue. We can’t figure out how he’s moving between here and the city, but we have a theory. The interlocking reasoning shows there’s a traitor. Here’s what we think. There’s a secret tunnel that Sanfuri is using to travel between the bridge and the city – perhaps this side of the city, perhaps beyond. You need to warn Rhyme, Drex and Ammox about the possibility of encirclement. I mean, not encirclement as such, but that Drex’s force could be cut off by a force emerging from a hidden entrance behind him. The main gates of Arbor could be assaulted while everyone’s attention is on the rear gates.”
“This concurs with the assessment you made today of the troop and Dragon numbers,” Xan added. “Thank you for being thorough, Whisper.”
Whisper said, “You couldn’t just have written all this in a coded message?”
“Aye, but we thought we needed to hear your detailed whispering …” the King sighed again. “I’m sorry we risked your life. I adjudged that the complexity of the issues and the information we’d want you to convey back to Arbor – you’re our link, Whisper. The only way we know what’s happening, and can warn them … and brief our troops and magic users, saving lives – but I’m not the one crossing canyons and baiting Dragons. I apologise again.”
I am selfish!
Whisper bowed. “I’m sorry, too. That was an unworthy response.”
Xan tented his fingers, staring down at her with a disconcertingly shrewd, grey-eyed gaze. “The records of Azarinthe don’t appear to document the frankly uncommon levels of dedication and caring you’ve shown in your performance of these tasks. Whence does this impetus of heart arise, Whisper? Is this a new protocol for your kind?”
She could only duck her head as her ears grew hot. “I don’t know.”
Just a messenger? Xan was right. Where did one draw the line between delivering a message, and delivering it with extra zeal that piled up dead Dragons along the way?
Xan said, “Here’s a map. Can your memories help me trace the emforite inclusions so that we could project where such a theoretical tunnel might emerge?”
After a further ten minutes’ discussion, they marked four potential locations, one beyond the city and three before it, where a dracoworm tunnel might have been excavated – perhaps years before, in preparation for such a day. Xan said, “Make sure you take this intelligence to Rhyme and Rhyme alone.”
“Of course,” Whisper nodded.
“Sunstrike help us if she’s the traitor,” the Grey Queen pointed out.
“No!” cried Whisper.
Xan just turned a far pastier shade of his natural grey. “I hadn’t actually considered …” He cursed under his breath; Whisper could only imagine how he felt, having to consider his beloved’s all-too-possible perfidy. “She’d be high on the probability hierarchy. Freaking fungazoids!”
“There’s a further warning,” Xola added, her lips forming into a thin white line. “Whisper. If you encounter Sanfuri in battle, he could dispatch you on a mission to –”
“Illuxor?” said Whisper. “A moon? The bottom of the Brass Mirror?”
“Hostile messaging,” said King Xan, puffing out his cheeks before releasing the air with a low hiss. “Now, let’s discuss how we might flush this traitor out of hiding. I believe we need to act quickly, for Arbor’s sake. The crux of the battle draws nigh.”
* * * *
Xola growled, “I can outdo that dense-as-a-boulder Illuxorite any hour of any day!”
“He gave me a sophisticated air-to-water missile. You’re giving me a rock and a rope for my ankle,” Whisper pointed out.
The Queen folded her arms, tapping her foot dangerously. “This is an efficient solution. You say the winds are much weaker, lower down. I plan to get you there quickly.”
“By lobbing me off a cliff tied to a rock? The phrase ‘Wyvern bait’ springs to mind.”
“I’d do it myself, except I’m not half as tasty-looking as you.”
Xan, appearing behind his sister, chuckled, “Sanfuri desires your hand. Whatever could be holding you back, sister?”
Only Whisper could have seen the expression that crossed Xola’s features. Hatred, aye. But also fear. She turned to King Xan. “You have someone you love, brother, and that makes me happy.” Although, she said it as if she had been invited to a funeral.
Apparently, only Xan in all the world could risk giving Xola a hug. His was a quick, warm squeeze about her shoulders. “Whisper can find you someone. I hear there have been several cases of whisper-inspired liaisons developing amongst our ranks.”
Xola’s grin flashed briefly. “Oh?”
Their identical grey gazes turned upon Whisper. She shrugged and said, with maximum snarkiness, “Well, the catapult won’t load itself, will it?”
The next hour of her life was full of novel experiences for a Whisper. Firstly, she was loaded into a massive slingshot by the King himself, and the Queen launched her over Sanfuri’s battlements and out into the canyon. Then, she plummeted into the depths, chased by several hundred enthusiastically screeching, would-be tail nibblers. However, judicious use of the neurotoxin darts weakened enough Wyverns that they soon turned upon their own kind – ready meals not falling quite as fast as fleeing Whispers. A mile from the Brass Mirror, she drew her dagger and severed the rope. Calculating the winds as best she could, she flared her skin gradually, bringing her body into a low, fast swoop that took her along the cliffs in search of her beached missile.
Twice, fanged nasties leaped out of the acid to try to snaffle a trailing limb, but she managed to dodge their clumsy efforts. Then, a rapid descent took her down to the waiting beach, where her missile bobbed in perhaps half a foot of acid water.
Draconids!
She was out of time and options. Whisper aimed directly for the open hatch. Wham! Landing, she slapped the release and ignition buttons, and punched a lunging draconid in the fangs. She wrung her paw at once. Drat, those were hard. When the creature did not politely desist – odd, that – she punched it again, this time adding a mouthful of flechettes for good measure. The missile lurched forward as the single-shot thrusters ignited. She spun about. Only one had fired! The craft slewed again; Whisper had the foresight to slam her hatch shut a fraction of a second before acidic seawater slopped into her seat. Grraaaa-rrrr! The craft swerved and bucked as the single engine fired more strongly. She blasted through draconids, shouting a few words she had learned from the Azar soldiers and punching buttons until with a strong kick, the second engine finally deigned to fire.
Go, go … go! She whanged off a boulder and swung crazily out onto the Brass Mirror.
The surface was rougher than her first journey. As she gathered speed, the craft bounced about strongly. Whisper had little idea where she was aiming the nose, since she had no blood-oath to blaze the goal in her mind. Maybe there were uses for her directional sense after all. How did that even work? A dip into the collective consciousness that she half-suspected might exist beneath the canyons and bulwarks of Yanzorda, and knowledge arose? Daunting.
Whisper rattled over the sunken canyon, noticing that the acid was already eating away at the glass porthole, where splashes had landed. Then, the left-paw control came away in her grip.
Oh no. There had been more acid-splash than she had imagined. Now, she had no control whatsoever of the thrust, and the jouncing glimpses she caught out of the misted porthole were not comforting. The waterfall! She wrenched at the steering, slewing out of the thundering flow, ramped up a boulder and slammed the nose-cone into a chink in the cliff.
Whisper rubbed a new bruise on her forehead. “Remind me
to take lessons in missile driving.”
That destroyed her idea of popping out and flying to the cliff – but the thrusters were still running, vibrating the missile loose. She popped the hatch, leaped … and found herself drifting upward in the throes of an unexpected waterfall-maelstrom, her limbs flailing as a gravity inversion played its usual pranks on her sense of balance. Whisper drew her arms and legs back to her sides with a cross snap. No point in looking like a whippet-draconid kicked into a gorge by an Arboreal Dragon, to pick a random example.
Flap, flap. Could this gravity inversion work any faster?
Had she produced a gravitational flux just by thinking about it, or did they arise naturally? Making her own would be a little too convenient she supposed, sighing. Whisper worked her way over to the cliff face and proceeded to run up the slippery waterfall as if she were standing upon level ground, with confused water sheeting off to either side in gushing streaks of white froth. Neat trick!
When the well stopped after a mile, however, she fell back, screaming … and bobbed about on thin air. “At least gravity works, unlike your brain,” she berated herself.
Then, she realised she was on the wrong side of the waterfall. Whisper thumped her head against a handy boulder. She gazed up at the strongside sky. Dawn was coming, and with it, the Wyverns would start to wake up. However, they did not appear to enjoy nesting near the waterfall. Setting her talons to the task, she climbed the mossy, slippery rocks as quickly as she possibly could.
Reaching the river level, she sprinted along a narrow animal trail along the bank until she reached the buttress she had seen from above, where a thin plume of white waterfall landed atop and then split into two for the further tumble down into the gorge where she stood. There were multiple levels of mines this side, she remembered. That meant ropes, and a relatively easy climb for a wayfinder. Whisper charged up the bulwarkside, dashed over the buttress, surprising a quartet of soldiers on duty, ducked beneath the waterfall for a five-second trailside wash, and then ran for the next sets of basket pulleys that would take her up to the city proper. She craned her neck. No pyres. No sagging nets torn open, and no Dragons up there tossing Human bones over the edge.
No Dragons at all …
Gasping with realisation, Whisper pinned her ears back and sprinted up a thick hawser, no longer caring where her talons landed.
The city needed to hear her whisper.
Chapter 22: Death’s Whisper
WARLEADER AMMOX WAITED for her just inside the city’s rear gates, flanked by two of his Captains.
Whisper’s paws stumbled. His expression was so … forbidding.
“Report, Whisper!” From fifty yards off, Ammox’s parade ground bark was enough to make her stagger. Of course, she must have been seen climbing up the cliffs. She had made no attempt to hide herself near Arbor. There was no need, or, there might have been had the Warlock broken through – then who would have been the fool?
In a moment, she skidded to a halt in front of the Warleader. “Princess Rhyme?”
“Other side of the city. Report!”
Xan had told her to speak only to Rhyme, but that was impossible. The soldiers both sides of the city needed to be alerted and the Warleader was the one to arrange that. In terse sentences, between gasps and pants, Whisper sketched King Xan’s tunnel theory for him. Two more Captains arrived; Ammox dispatched them at once with orders.
Then, he addressed his two remaining Captains. “Landur, secure the front gates!”
“Aye, Warleader!”
“Semoki, find a messenger dragonet. Alert Captain Drex. Then, look to the walls and inner defences. Everything must be perfect.”
“Aye, Warleader!” Semoki crashed her fist against her breastplate.
“I’ll take charge of this gate. Whisper, you go brief Rhyme. She’s facing –”
“Princess Rhyme!” Warlock Sanfuri’s magically enhanced voice boomed over the city, even from a quarter-mile distant. Whisper shuddered! “Blue-painted cowards of Arbor! I am Sanfuri the Conqueror. I have crossed the Sundering with my Dragon army. Today, your city shall be mine.”
As the Warlock spoke, the Warleader pressed Whisper on the shoulder. “One more run, beast. Go brief the Princess. Help her forces when the Warlock attacks.”
She nodded, and ran like the wind.
In equally amplified tones, the Princess replied, “I thought I smelled fungatoad on the breeze! Oddly, it wasn’t your usual stench, Sanfuri. It must be that piece of mouldy boot leather you own for a familiar. Come right on in!” She brandished an axe in either hand. “I’ll introduce your teeth to my axes!”
Laughter rose from the Arborite troops manning the battlements and ahead, from the troops dug in with Princess Rhyme. Whisper darted a glance over her shoulder, thinking she had heard an odd, choked-off cry somewhere near the gates, but saw nothing amiss. Besides, the Dragons lined up behind Sanfuri were thundering their battle challenges, drowning out every noise for miles about. The grey-clad Warlock stood atop Ignothax’s back, brandishing his freakishly huge sword as he roared right along with the Dragons, his features contorted into a tendons-popping, veins-writhing imitation of the Dragons – as if he knew and experienced their exact emotions. Whisper shivered again.
That connection with his familiar … what powers did it accord him?
“Ah, sweet Princess,” he sneered, once the roaring simmered down to a low growl, like proximate thunder. “Why don’t you come over here and I’ll show you –” he supplied a crude gesture Whisper did not entirely understand, but the Dragons evidently did. Cruel laugher echoed down the canyon.
Rhyme made a show of testing the edge of her axe. Whisper knew how often she sharpened those blades. “I’m in the mood for a surgical amputation of my own, Warlock! Come over here and I’ll –”
Well, that gesture was unambiguous enough to make even a Whisper blush.
Humans and their silly insults. Why did the Warlock even indulge in this nonsense? She ran up to the Princess, standing atop her fortifications that covered the trail. Sanfuri stood at a very precise location, she noticed, about ten feet short of a vicious Mage-trap that Shivura was exceedingly proud of, while the two leaders indulged in a game of insults Whisper found tiresome in the extreme.
Unless it was a matter of timing … turning quickly to Shivura, she hissed, “He’s standing short of the trap. Why? Proof of –”
“Betrayal?” The Mage blurted out. “Of course. I like this even less than I like furry pests with mouths too big for their paws. Brief the Princess. Be discreet.”
Covertly, several Captains, Consul Yara, the Mage and a group of Element Enchanters edged closer to Whisper as she relayed the information she had given to Warleader Ammox. Even as she spoke, Whisper’s brain churned at a furious pace. Could Rhyme be stalling deliberately? Or was the traitor another? A Captain in the city? Someone here – her eyes scanned the company quickly. The Princess’ back was open.
“Ammox is on it?” Yara said, glancing back at the gates.
“How’s your dear old father?” Warlock Sanfuri pressed, still booming away. “I hold his life in my palm – literally. Will you not surrender for his sake?”
“I know my father. Surrender would kill him,” Rhyme replied.
“Ah, well, once I’ve trotted through your open gates and taken the Talisman I desire, I will destroy that old fool before your eyes. Is that a Whisper I hear behind you, Princess?”
Shivura cursed. “Are you carrying a Mage-trace?”
“No …”
“Even our gates stand against you and your stench, Sanfuri!” roared the Princess Blue.
“Indeed? They look unguarded to me. And very … wide open.”
The mildness of the Warlock’s reply caught Rhyme by surprise, and Sanfuri knew it. He chortled indulgently as first Shivura and then Yara stared back in horror. “They’re drawing apart!” hissed the Consul. “Princess, we must stop them –”
Whisper’s glance took in the widenin
g gates and an Arborite soldier standing in the gap, waving frantically. “Ammox!” she groaned.
Shivura cried, “The Warleader? Surely not!”
Realisation opened before her now. The slight sheen of sweat on the Warleader’s forehead. The purposeful way Ammox had turned toward the gatehouse. The way he had dispatched his Captains to make arrangements; the exact quiver his hand made upon the haft of his axe. She had been too focussed on reaching the Princess to take notice. He had been low on Xan’s list of potential traitors – except that she had made the logical leap, now. Too late. Why did not matter. What, did. The gates clicked open in their widest position, and stayed put. Where were all the soldiers who ought to be protecting the city’s entryway? Had the Warleader sent them off?
The Dragons around Warlock Sanfuri beat their wings preparatory to taking off. The Warlock’s laughter thundered over the city, shaking it to the very foundations, as he cried, “I think I’ll just walk right on in!”
Suddenly, mid-guffaw, he pointed dramatically. “Yula-îk-yyrrkûdi –”
“Whisper – I bind thee!” screamed Rhyme.
Sanfuri’s face turned a fine shade of puce. Without delay, however, he thundered, “Now, Arbor shall fall!” The Dragons beat into the sky, sweeping over the defenders toward the buttress that sheltered the city.
Pitifully, unwillingly, Whisper breathed, “O Master, describe the person, place and imperative.”
Rhyme looked every bit as miserable as the oath-magic had just made her friend. “I, Whisper, uh, send you to K –”
“Yessimy!” snapped Consul Yara.
“Aye … Yessimy. At the Palace, tell her to … to look after the King. Go, Whisper!”
As Whisper sprinted toward the city, she heard the roar of Sanfuri’s troops charging up from behind where the Warlock had taken his stance, the Princess splitting off a war-group to follow her to the city, and another roar, further afield, as the front gates came under sustained attack. As she ran, her mind ran even faster. What if she did not quite find Yessimy at the Palace? What if she paused to fight, and then continued her mission? How long could she tarry before the blood-oath magic debilitated her? Ahead, Sanfuri’s Dragons endured a withering hail of fire from the fixed emplacements, but their shields appeared to be strong enough to withstand everything the defences hurled at them. Once they were inside … she passed beneath the Dragons now, running flat-out. Whisper heard a whine. Trigger-memory! She dived aside from the splash of Dragon acid, feeling and smelling the foul, white-green liquid passing just over her departing tail.
