Song of the Dragon aod-1

by Tracy Hickman

  “You are not the one I seek,” the elf said softly. “Until I have taken him, you will not have peace.”

  RuuKag stood suddenly.

  The elf’s staff shifted menacingly.

  “But. . Master!” RuuKag grumbled. “I’ve done all you asked of me! I stayed with the rebels, dropped the beacon stones as I promised. .”

  “And where are they now?” the elf demanded. “I could have taken you any time I wished. . but just getting recaptured wasn’t your task, was it? You were supposed to lead me to the rest of the bolters. . not just you! The entire point of having beacons planted among the slaves is so that you will lead us to all the other escaped slaves, not just yourself.”

  “Please, Master,” the manticore said, wringing his large, fur-covered hands. “I just want to go home.”

  “Home?” the elf spat. “You have no home, RuuKag. . it’s burned to the ground, its walls caving in on itself as a ruin because your companions wrecked it all. If you’re going to have any home at all, it will only be after you finish your task by leading me to the bolters with whom you’ve been traveling.”

  “I don’t know where they are!”

  “What?”

  “They. . they moved on,” RuuKag said. “That Drakis human said something about going east-maybe finding a ship or something. They’ve probably left by now. .”

  “Then find them!” the elf insisted. “By the gods, you’re a manticore!”

  “But, Master,” RuuKag asked with uncertainty in his voice. “I know you are powerful, but they have magic of their own. . powerful and deadly. How many of your brothers are with you?”

  “It’s just me,” the elf replied. “And it will go a lot better for all of us if it remains just me.”

  “I don’t understand,” RuuKag said, shaking his head.

  “Listen to me, manticore!” the elf was losing patience. “There are three-maybe four full Quorums of Iblisi on the plains who are trying to keep up with me. They are hunting me in order that they may be led to you. When they find us-should they find us-then I can promise you as certainly as the sun will arise in the morning, things will go much worse for all of us-you included-if you do not get me to this Drakis friend of yours first.”

  “I don’t. . please, Master, I’ve got to think. .”

  “Think!”

  The manticore flinched at the elf’s shouted word.

  “You don’t have to think about anything! Thinking is what made you a coward!”

  RuuKag whined, his ears flattening back against his wide head.

  “I may not have Timuran’s Impress Scrolls, but I did read the Devotion Ledger-especially of certain bolters,” the elf said, stepping closer. “RuuKag, once of the Shakash Pride was supposed to be a warrior-supposed to rush into battle-but he thought too much, felt too much. So he came home. . just walked back to his pridelands because the thought of battle and death and pain frightened him. The frightened manticore! A freak and an embarrassment to his father and mother and brothers and everything his Shakash Pride had stood for and taught since the rise of Chaenandria. You were useless, so they banished you to the Vestasian Savanna.”

  RuuKag shrank back.

  The elf pressed his face so near the manticore that his scent was overwhelming. “How was that for you, RuuKag? Too afraid to fight and your own family not understanding why? They still loved you, still cared for you, but in one way or another they all turned their backs on you and banished you from the pride. You might still be among them, but you could never again be one of them. So you banished yourself, making the long way to the cursed lands of the Vestasian Savanna, nursing the wounds in your heart. How was that for you, RuuKag of Shakash. . oh, pardon me, RuuKag of no pride at all. . to come again just weeks ago back to the old lands of your punishment? Did even the mud gnomes remember the story of the manticore with no pride?”

  “No,” whispered RuuKag. “Not even that.”

  “No, you were forgotten-not even important enough for the mud gnomes to remember your story,” the elf sneered. “No wonder you prefer to forget.”

  RuuKag closed his eyes. Great tears fell down his fur-covered cheeks, glinting in the moonlight.

  “Now, I’m the one who knows your story, RuuKag,” the elf continued. “You could try to take me, I suppose, try to summon that famously vicious warrior heart, and we could do battle right here. Or you could do as you were told to do: lead me to Drakis and his companions, serve the Imperial Will and, as your reward, I will see to it that you never remember again who you were and the shame you brought on your family and pride.”

  RuuKag’s breath was ragged. He held very still.

  “Take me to Drakis,” the elf whispered. “And RuuKag can be completely forgotten. No one will remember that name. . not even you.”

  RuuKag opened his eyes and stared into the blackness that was encompassed by the elf’s hood.

  “I will, Master,” the manticore said.

  The elf smiled, his sharp teeth shining in the starlight.

  “But I will need a new set of beacon stones,” RuuKag continued. “They’re going to use the old ones to take you in the wrong direction.”

  “Here,” the elf said, reaching into the folds of his cloak and pulling out a small, plain pouch. “These are my own-made by my hand. They will answer to my staff only.”

  “Thank you, Master,” the manticore said. He took a few steps up the northwestern road and then stopped. “Master, is it true that you do not wish to harm this Drakis-human?”

  The elf chuckled. “RuuKag, I may be the only one I know who does not want him dead.”

  “But,” RuuKag persisted, “why do you wish him alive?”

  “I have my own reasons,” the elf replied.

  “Surely such things are beyond my understanding,” RuuKag said, his eyes gazing once more upward toward the stars, “but it is a wonder that an elf should cross all of Chaenandria, concern himself with the obscure backgrounds of a handful of freed slaves, and cross the length and breadth of the Vestasian Plain just to meet this Drakis.”

  The elf paused. “You’re thinking again, RuuKag.”

  “Sorry, Master,” the manticore said, lowering his head.

  “Just don’t let it happen again.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  The manticore turned once more to face the elf. “They will have questions, Master-about my absence, especially since they discovered the stones. What do I tell them?”

  “Tell them. .” The elf thought for a moment before he continued with a bright lilt in his voice. “Tell them that you were their traitor.”

  “They would kill me,” RuuKag said. “You cannot be serious!”

  “On the contrary, I am most serious,” the elf continued. “They wouldn’t believe you if you lie. Tell them that you have been dropping these stones so that they could be tracked and followed and that the Iblisi are searching for them. Then tell them that after getting to know them you have changed your mind and want to help them instead.”

  “They will believe this?”

  “Absolutely,” the elf said, folding his arms across his chest, his staff casually crooked in his arms. “Any lie is far more easily swallowed when it is mixed with a liberal amount of the truth. Besides, from what I know of this Drakis, he would be more willing to forgive a penitent traitor than a professed friend. Most humans are.”

  RuuKag nodded. “Then I shall do your bidding. . but, Master, by what name shall I speak of you?”

  “Soen,” the elf replied. “Just Soen.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Heart of the Manticore

  Belag was straining at his own patience. Urulani knew the Cragsway Pass, and the dwarf simply could not be stopped from coming. Even the Lyric-who still insisted that as Musaran the Wanderer her spirit could easily keep up with them all-was moving with them through the night. Fortunately, Belag mused, Drakis and Mala were nowhere to be found or they, too, might have insisted on coming. As it was, the group was moving far more slowly th
an Belag liked. He would have preferred them to have just stayed behind and let him deal with RuuKag himself-a stealthy hunt and a quick kill would have been more to his liking. But he did need Urulani to help him track down the traitorous manticore, and there seemed no stopping the dwarf or the Lyric. At least Jugar had managed to close his mouth and keep silent as they passed to the south.

  It was well into twilight when they descended the southern slopes of the Sentinel Peaks. RuuKag’s tracks had been easy to follow through the pass; he had made no effort in his haste to disguise them. Darkness fell fully upon them as the foothills gave way to the savanna beyond. The tracking became more difficult through the tall grasses, but Urulani had more success here. Soon it was evident that the trail had straightened.

  Urulani lifted her arm and pointed southward. Belag stopped and stood silently in the night for a time, finally lifting the dwarf up so that he could see above the tall grass.

  The trail led straight toward the mud city of the Hak’kaarin-the same city they had left just days before.

  Even from three leagues distant, they could see that something terrible had happened there.

  The mud city was burning. Tongues of flame flared above it from the opening in its enormous roof. Smaller fires burned outside the great dome. Black, greasy smoke was billowing from the opening, marring the night sky with a great absence of stars overhead.

  Belag put the dwarf down, and they began a more wary approach to the city.

  It was well after midnight when the four of them arrived at the clearing surrounding the city. Gaping pits had opened up all around the base of the dome-part of the defensive system that Belag had observed surrounded each of the mud mound cities of the Hak’kaarin. Many of them appeared to have been activated. Other places in the ground and across the dome were marred with long, charred furrows.

  “Look,” Urulani said in hushed tones as she pointed along the base of the dome. “Most of the gates are shut, but those two are broken inward-as is that third farther down.”

  Belag nodded and then raised his head, his ears swiveled forward as he listened intently. Only the crackling and rush of the fires came to his ears. No cries. . No battle. . just the sound of burning.

  “He came here,” the Lyric said with sadness filling her voice.

  Belag turned to her. “Lyric, I don’t think. .”

  “RuuKag came here because he was in pain,” the Lyric said, her eyes fixed on the nearest shattered gate. “He was in pain because he knew that he was once again part of a great story. He had listened to you, Belag, and heard more than you knew. For all his anger came from his pain, and his pain was that he had too great a heart. He believed you, Belag. In the end, he believed in Drakis, too.”

  Belag, Urulani, and the dwarf stared at the Lyric. Her eyes gazed far away, as though she were seeing a scene that was beyond the vision of mere mortals. She began walking toward the shattered gate as she spoke. “But his own story was sad and tragic. He had bragged about going to war when he was a cub, but in his heart he had doubts. He feared pain and death, and so in the end he was branded a coward by his own pride and exiled. He was forgotten-even among the Hak’kaarin who once had sheltered him.”

  Urulani whispered. “How can she know these things?”

  “That girl knows more than she’s letting on,” Jugar said, his eyes narrowing as he considered her.

  Belag shook his head. “Come. . look there in the ground. Those are RuuKag’s tracks. The Lyric’s walking in them.”

  They came to the shattered gate. The long tunnel beyond curved gradually upward toward the center of the enormous mud dome as in every other city they had visited, but here they stopped in horror.

  The floor was carpeted with the dead.

  “What a struggle they must have put up,” Jugar breathed.

  Urulani pressed her lips together, unable to speak.

  Belag turned to the Lyric. “What happened here?”

  “He came,” the Lyric continued, her eyes staring past the end of the rising tunnel toward where the glow of fire could be seen. “He had accepted your faith in Drakis, Belag, and the old fear returned to him. . but this time that he would be remembered as the manticore who failed the human of the prophecy. The battle was already raging when he arrived. He had come for solace from these gentle creatures of the Hak’kaarin, the only family he felt left to him. He saw the battle, heard the desperate cries of the mud gnomes. .”

  The Lyric turned and pointed at the ground. “Here he ran, charging past the bodies of the gnomes who had fallen. He picked up a weapon-taken from this gnome’s cold hands-and with a great warrior cry leaped forward.”

  The Lyric stepped carefully among the fallen dead, their blood staining her sandals and the hem of her skirt as she walked down the tunnel. Belag and the others, entranced by her words, followed down the hall with gingerly steps.

  The Lyric stopped where the tunnel rose sharply upward toward the center of the dome. A great, jet-black stain swept from one side of the tunnel to the opposite wall where some of the mud had melted into dark glass. “Here he saw the first of them-a robed elven hunter whose magic was killing the Hak’kaarin in terrible numbers. Seeing the gnomes being murdered thus, at last RuuKag found his warrior’s heart-or perhaps he found a cause for which he could fight.”

  At the apex of the stain lay a robed figure missing its head.

  “Here, for the first time,” the Lyric said, “RuuKag found the courage to kill.”

  The Lyric, her hem now dragging a terrible bloody stain across the floor behind her, stepped up the ramp and into the great open space beneath the center of the dome.

  The fires were burning out in the upper levels but still gave all too bright illumination on the grizzly scene. Two sections of habitat walls had collapsus and buried part of the central floor of the common area. The bodies of the dead gnome defenders were a terrible blanket across the floor.

  “Where are the children?” Urulani asked.

  “What? What children?” Belag growled.

  “That’s my point,” Urulani said, her eyes shifting across the mass of the dead. “These are all warrior gnomes. Some men and some women but none of them old-none of them infirm-and there are no children here among the dead.”

  “She’s right,” Jugar said in astonishment. “In such a calamity one might expect an even greater number of noncombatants to fall prey to the terrible confusion of war.

  “And there’s not enough of the dead,” Belag nodded. “This was terrible, indeed, but even so there are nowhere near enough dead to account for the entire city.”

  “He saved them,” the Lyric said simply.

  “Who saved them,” Belag asked.

  The Lyric pointed again, this time to the far side of the commons.

  Belag’s eyes opened wide.

  RuuKag-or what was left of him-lay dead against the wall. His eyes were dull and blood stained the corners of his open jaws and his bared teeth. The hair was burned entirely off his left side where the raw red of his muscle was exposed. His right arm hung at an impossible angle, flopping limply over one of the three shafts that pierced his chest.

  Next to him was a crumpled form in robes, an elf whose throat had been torn out.

  “Elves!” Belag snarled.

  “Back again, eh?” The dwarf gritted his teeth.

  “Look! There are more of them,” Urulani said, again pointing to various places around the hall. “Four. . six. . wait, there’s one up there, too. Seven of them!”

  Belag nodded as he stepped quickly through the carnage to reach RuuKag’s side. He stood over the fallen manticore for a few moments and then reached down and closed his eyes.

  “Well fought, brother,” he murmured into RuuKag’s ear. “You’ve proved your heart this day. Your story will be told. . and I will tell it.”

  Jugar considered RuuKag for a moment then took in the rest of the dead. “He bought them time. . time to escape.”

  “Yes,” Belag said, straightening
up. “The rest of the Hak’kaarin are fleeing to the other cities. Within days the story of what happened here will be told from one end of the savanna to the other.”

  “I don’t understand,” Urulani said, shaking her head. “Slave hunters have no reason to attack the mud cities. The Hak’kaarin have no possessions worth the attention of any elves and they make terrible slaves.”

  “These aren’t slavers,” Belag said, turning suddenly. “This is a full Quorum of the Iblisi-the Inquisitors of the Imperium. They have no interest in gnomes.”

  “What do they want then?” Urulani asked. “Why attack this city?”

  “Because they thought we were here,” Belag replied. “Because they thought he was here.”

  “Drakis?” Urulani sputtered, “All these gnomes destroyed and your friend slaughtered. . just because these elven magicians think your friend is part of this moldy prophecy?”

  “Come!” the manticore said as he began moving back toward the tunnel as quickly as the gore-coated floor would allow. “We have to get back. . we have very little time left.”

  “Time?” Urulani said with astonishment. “Time for what?”

  “Lyric. . uh, Musaran,” Belag called. “You must come and tell this story to Drakis.”

  “As a spirit I am above such things,” the Lyric replied.

  “Yes, but Drakis is fond of communing with spirits,” Belag continued. “Come quickly. Jugar, Urulani. We must get back at once!”

  “Get back?” Urulani was losing her patience. “What about any survivors? What if there are more of those ‘Ubisee’ things around?”

  “I tell you that there will be a lot more of those ‘Ubisee things’ around soon enough!” Belag said, stopping at the top of the ramp and turning to face the warrior-woman. “This was a single Quorum, but as soon as the other Quorums get word of what happened here, they’re going to know it was one of us who did this. . and it won’t take them long to figure out that the only way we might have gone is through the Cragsway Pass.”

  “And to Nothree,” Jugar said as he nodded.

  “They’ve found us,” Belag said. “And our backs are to the sea.”