Did they think names mattered anymore? “For the last time, get out of my way.”
They did not move. She waved: the spiked three-horn came up and lowered his head, the spines on his neck frill like rays of the sun. Five armored lizards stumped into place behind him. A wedge formed, the skeletons headed for the guards. Arrows flew. Those that struck their targets shattered; the rest could as well have been rain. The pikemen lunged, to find their weapons gripped in bony jaws and wrenched from their grasp.
Those still on their feet ran. Three lay on the floor after being knocked down. The armored lizards nudged them out of the way.
Impatient, the spiked three-horn rammed the door. It shattered. Orange fire billowed out of the room; the skeletal creature exploded into a million fragments.
The armored lizards opened their jaws in what Daine knew was a silent roar, and charged. Orange fire ripped the side off a double-armored lizard and broke the right-side spines on its neighbor. The remaining skeletons kept going. Daine covered her eyes against a bright flare of magic beyond the door, then urged her mammoth forward. Inside the doorway, Chioké lay crushed. He was pinned there by a thirty-three-foot-long armored forest lizard whose skull and front half were melting. Daine slid down and went to the dinosaur, trying not to cry as it fought to look at her.
“Go back to sleep,” she said, patting the undamaged spine. “You’ve done a wondrous thing here, and I thank you. Go back to sleep.”
The dinosaur relaxed, letting what remained of his head drift to the floor. For a moment copper fire shone brightly in the girl’s eyes, running along her friend’s bones. In it she saw the forest lizard as he must have looked in life, skin a gleaming chestnut brown, all his spines and plates whole. He was trotting away from her, bound for a lush forest that shone in the distance. When her vision cleared, even his skeleton was gone.
Checking the pair who had been half destroyed outside the door, she saw that they, too, had vanished.
A snake-neck grabbed her by the waistband and lifted her onto the mammoth’s back. Please be careful about getting down! scolded Zek. Even if we fight the ones with magic, you are safer up here!
The mammoth waited for the last of the skeletons to enter Ozorne’s rooms, then followed. Two snake-necks, finding that they would never get their large bones through the door, began to lean against the walls, trying to force them.
“Emperor Ozorne!” shouted Daine. No one answered. The girl looked at her warriors. “I think you’d best go to work.”
They ripped the elaborate suite of rooms to shreds. They tore open chests and closets, broke whatever could be broken: furnishings, tiles, glass, pottery. The secret exit through which Zek had seen Ozorne go to visit a captive girl was laid bare. Daine urged her mammoth through the different chambers until they passed through Ozorne’s bedroom and entered the aviary.
Here were the benches, and the table where he’d fed her dreamrose. A book lay open on it, and a decanter of wine had shattered on the floor. Someone had been here recently, and had left in a hurry. Looking around she saw that the panes of the rear wall were shattered, as though a giant fist had punched through the glass and its green metal fittings. Soot streaked the panes on the outside; the odor of scorched bone hung in the air. More than ever, she was glad she had arranged for the birds to be taken away before any of this began.
Her mammoth followed the tyrant lizard through the broken wall and into the gardens. Here lay some of the warriors from another part of her army: a four-toothed elephant, two plated lizards, and a snake-neck. Their remains were blackened and twisted by magical fire.
“Thank you,” she whispered to all of them.
Copper fire bloomed; scorched bones rose and became whole bodies. The dinosaurs headed toward a distant forest, to vanish as the copper light faded.
“Curse it,” she muttered, looking at the burned area where they had lain. “Curse it, curse it—” She pounded the mammoth’s back in fury. Where had Ozorne gone, if indeed he was the one who had done this? He could be anywhere, up to any kind of mischief!
A small, winged shape with long, leathery ears dropped to flutter before her nose, squeaking a welcome. This was a large, mouse-eared bat, on his night’s hunt for insects. He was glad to see her, he said. All kinds of strange things were going on tonight. Was there anything he and his colony of the People could do?
Zek eyed him suspiciously. Can they be of any use? he asked.
“One way to find out,” she replied with a grim smile.
Cradling the bat against her shirt, she called the others, both mouse-eared bats and common pipistrelles. The ones close by came to Daine herself, gripping her clothes or lighting on the mammoth’s wide back. Those bats within the range of her magic but not close enough to reach her in person found roosts and waited to hear what she had to say.
As Zek peered curiously at these new guests, Daine built for them an image of Ozorne as he would “look” to bats, his face and form drawn with sound, not light. She gave them everything, from the tinny echo of beads in his hair to the clear whispers that would return from his gems. “Can you hear him?” she asked. “Is he anywhere near you?”
Wait, they told her in a single voice, and took to the air.
As the rest of her third of the skeleton army caught up, Ozorne’s chambers now so much rubble, she wondered what to do if the bats were unsuccessful. They could find him outdoors, even if he were invisible: no cloaking spell was invulnerable to sound. If he were indoors, or wore another shape, that was a different matter. They would recognize the form, not the wearer.
If he couldn’t defeat the dinosaurs, would he run? It was hard to imagine the Emperor Mage running from a girl and her army of dead animals. Still, blasts like the one that had finished the dinosaurs outside the aviary had to be costly in terms of his magical strength.
Reports began to come back from her spies. Bats were fast in the air, and they built sound pictures quickly. Within minutes Daine knew that not only was the emperor nowhere in the gardens, towers, or outlying buildings, but that parts of the complex were in flames.
“Pull back, then, all of you,” she said, wanting to cry. “It’s no good you getting cooked.”
Maybe we can help, a voice said from behind her.
Daine turned, and gasped. The hyenas were out.
“How—what—?” she stammered.
Teeu, the boss female, came forward to sniff Daine’s mammoth. The Mistress let us out, she said. Old One-Eye. She is a goddess of two-leggers, but she helps us, too, now and then.
Light reflected from metal in the air. Rikash landed on a balcony nearby. “I believe she felt you would require assistance,” drawled the green-eyed Stormwing. “You might want to know, a company of dinosaur skeletons opened the menagerie cages and dumped trees into the pits so the animals could climb out.”
“Kitten?” she asked Rikash. “My dragon? I dreamed she was in the immortals’ menagerie.”
“You dreamed truly. She is there under a sleep spell,” he replied. “Your friends tried to break into that collection, but failed. The spells on the gate and cages are keyed to Ozorne. They won’t give way until he dies.”
We are going to find this Ozorne, Teeu said cheerfully. The Mistress reminded us: we have a score to settle. She said you might want to come, too.
Daine thought fast. A hyena’s sense of smell was keener than any other living creature she’d ever met. She was willing to bet Ozorne wouldn’t think to change the unique scent given off by his body, no matter what shape he took. Better still, Teeu and her “boys,” Iry and Aranh, were creatures Ozorne had reason to fear. What better hunters could a girl bent on vengeance ask for?
“Lift me down, please?” she asked the mammoth, who complied. On the ground once more, she looked at Teeu. “I want to shape-shift and become one of you. Then we can hunt the emperor together, if you’re willing.”
Teeu gave a strange-sounding yip—a hyena laugh. Get on with it, the hyena urged. The night is young,
and Ozorne has a head start.
Daine looked up at Rikash. “It just occurred to me—what in the name of all the Horse Lords are you doing here?”
The Stormwing ruffled his feathers. “I was paying my respects to my true sovereign, Queen Barzha, and her consort.”
“Rikash—” she said warningly, not believing him.
“Well, as it happens, I’d heard that tonight would be an interesting night for Carthak.”
“You mean the Graveyard Hag told you.”
“Perhaps.” The Stormwing’s eyes glittered as he smiled. “There’s a chance the emperor might feel the need to use the gift that I gave him. I wanted to be here to see the fun.”
“If he has any sense, he’s run off.”
“Ah, but a man with sense never would have ignored so many warnings. I doubt he has fled.”
“He killed Numair,” Daine said hoarsely.
“I know.” The immortal rocked to and fro, cleared his throat, and said, “I am sorry.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. She rubbed her sleeve over her eyes and turned to her skeleton army. “Will you go on tearing things up? I don’t know if you can follow where I’m about to go, and I really want to leave this place a ruin.”
All of them nodded. Zek clambered down from the mammoth’s back. She patted each skeleton and elephant as they passed her, wishing them a good hunt and giving them her thanks. When they had gone, she asked Rikash, “Would you look after Zek and see he comes to no harm?”
He frowned, but nodded. “If he does not object, I will place him in the dragon’s cage.” He jumped to the ground, using outspread wings to slow his fall.
It will be good to see Kitten, Zek said. Even if she’s asleep.
“I’d hate for anything to happen to Zek,” Daine said quietly, meeting Rikash’s eyes with hers. “Mithros knows why, but I trust you.” She kissed the top of the marmoset’s head, then held him out to the Stormwing. Zek climbed over Rikash’s shoulder, where steel grew out of flesh, and hid under the Stormwing’s long hair, grasping handfuls of it.
He smells terrible, the marmoset confided to Daine.
“Good hunting,” Rikash said, and took flight. Before he and Zek had gone from sight, Daine began the painstaking business of entering hyena form. She drew her memories of Teeu’s mind around her, letting her body shift. Her jaw spread and lengthened to become a muzzle. Her teeth broadened, widened, sharpened. At last she sat on the stone of the courtyard, a spotted hyena.
We can pick up the scent inside, she told her companions. His rooms are through that hole in the glass.
Teeu grinned, showing bone-crushing teeth. By all means, let us get a whiff of his lair. Daine and the males grinned back.
The dinosaurs still at work inside paid no attention to the four hyenas sniffing the emperor’s bedclothes and garments. The reek of Ozorne’s many perfumes made Daine feel queasy; smells that had been almost too much for her as a human were far more powerful to a hyena’s nose.
I don’t see why he soaks himself in all this, Iry complained. It’s disgusting.
Don’t whine, ordered Teeu. You should be grateful he left such a clear trail for us.
As they followed the scent through shattered glass to the outside once more, Daine found changes in it. Bitter tones, more powerful even than the perfumes, lingered around his steps. Outdoors, where smells of burned ground and scorched bone filled her nose, she could still find those bitter traces. The hyenas snuffled the earth, their nostrils taking information from the odors there. Daine growled, her rage surfacing at last as a hunter’s eagerness to find her prey.
Got it? Aranh asked.
She realized she would know Ozorne’s scent for the rest of her life, perhaps even in human form. Got it, she replied.
Then let’s go, Teeu said.
The hyenas picked up the trail along the outside wall of this wing of the palace. Teeu led the way, Daine at her side. The males spread out behind them, chattering in yips and whines.
What are those bad smells in his spoor? Daine asked the female. The ones that came into his odor as he left his rooms?
Teeu bared her teeth in a laugh. Fear, she replied gleefully. Your friends chased him from his lair and into the dark, on foot. Those are fear scents in your nose. If he were a wildebeest with that smell, you’d know it was beaten and you were about to make a nice kill.
They stopped at a fresh battlefield. A dead human in armor lay against the wall. He’d dragged himself away from the mammoth that had crushed his lower body. The mammoth itself was a pile of embers that burned copper and vanished when Daine pawed at it, whining. Two more skeletons nearby had been crisped by magical fire. They vanished like the mammoth’s remains when she touched them with her paw. A red-robed mage lay moaning in the bushes where he’d been thrown.
Come on, Iry called to Daine. The trail will get cold!
They found two more sites where the Emperor Mage had been forced to defend himself. There were so many bodies at the second—seven in all—that Daine thought of the sacrifices demanded at the funerals of ancient kings, whose households were put to death so that the king might have attendants in the afterlife. Carefully she thanked each of the fallen dinosaurs and elephants that had died a second time for her, and watched as their remains vanished from sight before moving on.
Next the trail brought them around a corner and into the light. At the end of a short mall ahead, the palace was ablaze. Between the hyenas and the fire stood a squad of armed guards. One of them yelped, seeing the beasts, and brought up a loaded crossbow.
Aranh leaped, strong legs propelling him across the distance between them, and tore the weapon from the guard’s hand. Bats swarmed out of the dark, blinding the other men with their wings before they could shoot the attacking hyena. Snarling, Aranh crushed the bow stave, making the weapon unusable. The rest of the guards dropped their weapons and fled.
The hyenas moved on.
The night air carried a thousand messages. Daine ignored the unimportant ones and concentrated on the odor of her prey. The emperor’s scent changed as they followed, as if it were a living thing that grew under her eyes. In his rooms it had been one of a very well tended man, tinged with almond rubbing oil, aloe lotion, orris-scented shampoo, perfumed makeup, the acrid smell of gilding powder and gold, lavender from his clothes, and the personal scent of a man who ate and drank richly. In the aviary, anger and then fear had been added to the mix. Outside he’d acquired a touch of charred hair and bone. Now the smell of burned things was much thicker. So was the fear.
Thunder rolled overhead. Flagstones gave way to gravel as the hyenas followed a path between tall hedges. The smell of recent burning drifted into their faces. Three dinosaur skeletons must have come at Ozorne from the far end of the path: their blackened remains lay in a heap there. The emperor had fled through an opening in the hedge. Stopping to thank those fallen allies, Daine trembled. He’d escaped her army again. A growl rumbled in her throat, and her mane stood up.
He’s weakening, remarked Teeu as the heaped skeletons shimmered and vanished. All the bones of the others were black through and through. These had white in them, and they still held together instead of breaking apart.
Good, snarled Daine. The less magic he has, the better!
The hyenas yipped agreement and picked up the emperor’s trail, laced now with blood and sweat. His thin shoes had given out on the gravel, leaving footprints etched in blood. Their path twisted around a fountain, followed the curve of the artificial lake, and headed straight down a path shaded by willows. Here the great three-horn, the first dinosaur she had awakened, and a huge snake-neck must have been waiting for him.
The snake-neck was the first they’d seen who bore few marks of burning. Instead tiny cracks had riddled its bones. Some had disintegrated completely, leaving small powdery heaps. When Daine nudged its skull, the skeleton shaped itself, becoming a living dinosaur. The snake-neck waited patiently while the girl turned to the three-horn. Ozorne had tried
to burn him without success, then melted him, the way Chioké had melted the bull three-horn. The great skeleton had gone down fighting: blood painted the tip of a long, sharp brow horn. Daine sniffed it: the blood was Ozorne’s.
He’s running out of fire, Iry told the others with savage glee. Look at this one—barely charred!
Sadly, Daine licked the three-horn’s beak. It gave under her tongue as flesh might.
Why are you unhappy? Teeu wanted to know. Does it hurt them to die?
No, Daine replied softly as copper fire raced over the half-melted skeleton, calling the owner back to the true shape of its living days. The badger said it didn’t, anyway. It just hurts me.
The great three-horn stood, his beaded hide a deep, golden bronze, his face, with its horns, restored. Through him Daine could see the trees dimly. Good-bye, she said, though she knew he couldn’t hear. I’ll miss you.
The three-horn bowed his head, touching her gently with his nose horn, then followed the snake-neck down a road to a distant jungle. The vision faded as they left the hyenas, until only the garden trees were left.
Rage and sorrow built in Daine’s heart until she thought it might burst. I want Ozorne! she snarled at her companions. I want to rip him up like he’s ripped me up!
Then hunt, cried the hyenas, eerie voice echoing in the dark. Smell, and find!
Daine set off, nose to the ground, the others behind her. Ozorne’s scent was nearly fresh and thick with the sourness of exhaustion. Drops of sweat had fallen with his blood, the red liquid dripping heavily now that the three-horn had marked him.
The trail turned beside a wall and passed through the shattered gates of the menagerie. Inside the moral animals’ enclosure, no animals were left. The cages were open, the fences pulled down, and trees reached from the pits to the ground level. The gate of the immortals’ menagerie stood open and whole: someone who knew the spells had unlocked it.
He’s here! she cried, and leaped.
Kaddar stood before the griffin’s cage, hand upraised. At the hyenas’ snarl, he whirled, and the shape he wore evaporated. It was Ozorne.
Emperor Mage Page 19
