When the Goddess Wakes

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Though the beast was silent, one of the patrolling figures looked up. Vannek saw him halt and stare in amazement, then fumble with a horn. The sentry had it to his lips. He managed a starting blat with the trumpet the same moment the dragon roared. Even while wearing ear stops, Vannek was nearly deafened. He felt the vibration of the attack through his legs.

  The battlement gave way, crumbling sideways with the sentinel and the top floor, raining down the front of the fortress.

  Muragan let out an exultant cry, then shouted back to him in glee. “That will get their attention!”

  A horn call from another tower rang in alert, and another sounded before its echoes died. Muragan banked the animal and Vannek felt it breathe heavily. From experience he knew the beast would need time before it could assault once more. As a result, rather than relying on its attack, when they passed over one of the towers he tossed a vial in front of a door that opened on the battlement.

  The toss went long, striking a merlon, but flame blossomed and spread weblike upon surrounding stone.

  Vannek, angry with himself, resolved to aim better next time.

  Muragan circled up. He meant to keep them out of arrow range while the beast regained its breath.

  A yellow light flashed in the courtyard and Vannek craned his neck to observe a portal opening near the stables. Armed figures dashed forth, spreading out. In amongst the Altenerai and the kobalin lords were some of his own. He thought he heard them shouting for Vannek loyalists to come forth, but the words were indistinct through his ear stops. Muragan brought the dragon back again for another sally. The sharp turn set Vannek’s stomach lurching.

  On this pass the dragon’s roar sheared off the front of one tower for nearly three stories. A bank of spearmen raced up to the wall, half-dressed but bearing their weapons, and Vannek tossed a vial at them. It passed just beyond the tip of the dragon’s wing, then crashed against the stone walkway only a bodylength from Cerai’s lackeys.

  One screamed in pain. He glanced back to see flame sprouting, only to be alerted by a call from Muragan.

  The mage turned the dragon sharply, for a huge stone had passed them in the air. Someone had launched a catapult.

  A rain of arrows whipped in from the left. Vannek heard his name screamed, seeing then that the three archers on the tower’s height were Naor, and that the burly one at their height was Anzat himself.

  “Bring us back,” he shouted up to Muragan.

  “I don’t think that’s wise!”

  “That’s Anzat! If we bring him down, our people have no leader but me!”

  Muragan visibly sighed, but turned the dragon back at the fortress in a tight circle.

  Vannek glimpsed warriors trading blows in the courtyard. The portal itself had vanished and only a handful of lanterns pooled ruddy light near doors and walkways.

  Anzat shook a spear in the air, shouting. Vannek couldn’t quite hear him, but knew exactly what he wanted. The fool was screaming for a personal, face-to-face challenge.

  “Blast him,” Vannek cried.

  Muragan turned the dragon, and Anzat held his hand up to the archers. The idiot actually expected him to land and dismount! It was a delight to see the man’s expression fall, to see him turn and run when the dragon’s maw opened. Anzat had just reached the door to the battlement when the dragon’s roar blew him through it so that the stones showered up and over both sides of the wall. What was left of him and the others fell in bloody chunks mixed with masonry.

  Vannek laughed; ahead, Muragan let out a war whoop and brought them around. Even the dragon seemed to be enjoying itself, for it rumbled deep in its chest, like a contented dog after a meal.

  “I could get used to this!” Muragan shouted back to him.

  A bright blue light lanced out of an upper window and struck the center of the dragon’s left wing. The beast roared in pain as flame spread along the limb. It wobbled in its flight and a second flame set Muragan’s pack alight with a blinding flash.

  The dragon shook. Vannek blinked to clear the glare from his eyes. Muragan’s pack rolled with flame. He shouted at the same time the dragon let out a mournful wail.

  “Jump!” Vannek ordered harshly.

  “Get free!” the blood mage shouted back. The dragon was dropping, its wings outspread even though one of them was afire.

  Vannek undid his own straps, then reached toward the mage as the beast dropped lower and lower. He steadied himself against Muragan’s low seat back and reached toward the flames that had wrapped his back, patting at them.

  Muragan looked back at him through the flame, the white of one eye showing wide. “Get clear!”

  He wasn’t going to leave his friend behind. One quick slash at the shoulder strap freed the mage. He wrenched him up even as the dragon tilted in the air. They were thrown clear; Vannek pressed Muragan to him, the smouldering bag against his chest. Almost by accident his hand caught the shoulder strap Varama had pointed out to him.

  Fabric tore behind him and he thought his drop would end in death, but he heard a whoosh of air. A huge fabric square deployed behind him and he glided, or rather swung madly, toward the battlement.

  “It can’t carry us both!” Muragan cried.

  Vannek feared he was right, for they were falling fast.

  Below him, the flaming dragon slammed into the fortress gate. Fire licked eagerly around the shattered wood.

  “Let me go!” Muragan shouted.

  “We land together, or not at all!” Vannek said through gritted teeth.

  It was then he saw the soldiers on the battlement hefting their spears.

  33

  The Oath of the Ring-Sworn

  Moonlight silvered the courtyard grass at the tunnel’s end. Rylin stepped through a beat after Varama and took in the hut at the park-like center of the fortress. The walls rumbled under the assault of the dragon he saw swooping above the battlements.

  He was ready to move, frustrated by even the brief delay, for it was not Ortok, but Tretton who came through next, pausing only to get his bearings. Rylin pointed him the right way but wasn’t sure the older alten even noticed before sprinting into the darkness.

  Varama tended the glowing rift as the rest of their party came through. He saw her mouth compressed, her neck muscles strained. Her hands reached forth, clawlike, as if she held open an immense door eager to slam closed and take her fingertips with it.

  Inside the portal, the rest of their band seemed a mile off and then a step later were beside him. Foremost was the dark bulk of Ortok, his footing uncertain after the dizzying passage. Rylin grabbed the kobalin’s immense wrist, discovering he couldn’t encircle it with his fingers, “Follow me,” he said, and darted off.

  Somewhere behind him Vannek’s dragon roared, and someone screamed, and then came the all-too-familiar sound of collapsing stone. He consoled himself there was no need to fear, for this time the dragon was on their side.

  He heard the thud of Ortok’s steps to his rear as they neared the western door from the courtyard. When last he’d been here there’d been no locks, nor sorcerous protections, but as he reached for the latch he paused to peer through the inner world. While stray sorcerous filaments could be observed throughout the citadel, the door looked utterly plain, and it opened to his pull. For all its imposing outward appearance, Cerai was too arrogant to believe her building could be breached from the inside, a weakness Varama had anticipated.

  A dimmed lantern hung in the hall just beyond the door. Rylin snatched it and turned into the stairwell. As he pounded up the steps he remembered the countless runs Asrahn had sent the squires on, over hills, round and round the grounds, and up and down steps. He and Lasren had complained to each other that the Naor and kobalin were too stupid to make many stairs, and scoffed at spending so much time racing back and forth upon them; Rylin had charitably offered that Asrahn was keeping them fit enough to ensure they’d be first to the top of a wall to defend it. He had never imagined running stairs in an assault fo
llowed by a huge kobalin who was not enemy, but ally.

  They hit the first landing and had started up the second flight when a light bloomed on an upper level. Heels beat on wood. A squad of Cerai’s men hurried down, still buckling their sword belts. All had donned armor, but their shoulder straps weren’t secure. Their hair was tousled, their collars uneven.

  They looked just as startled to see Rylin as he was them. Rylin’s hand fell to his sword, but he didn’t draw. “One side,” he ordered crisply. And then, seeing their bewildered gaze as they took in Ortok, he added, “He’s with me. Get to your posts! We’re under attack!”

  All four of Cerai’s men stepped to one side, curious, but unaggressive. Rylin glanced back as he and Ortok started up the next flight of stairs and saw the soldiers heading down.

  “Why did you not fight them?” Ortok asked at his shoulder, his deep voice booming. “We would have broken them.”

  “We’ll waste time if we stop to fight.”

  “That was clever,” the kobalin said after a moment’s reflection. “I would have charged into them, and the moments would be spent.”

  Rylin heard the progress of the soldiers down the rest of the stairs, and the rise in outside noise when they opened the door.

  As he and Ortok arrived at the right landing Rylin put a hand to the latch. “Remember—you go for N’lahr, I get the tool.”

  “I have not forgotten.”

  Rylin pushed open the door. He’d half expected to confront a stream of enemies, but before him stretched only a stone corridor lit by brass lanterns hung every twenty paces, tiny spots of light in the surrounding gloom. Outside, the walls rattled. A man’s cry of anguish rent the night.

  “Our dragon,” Ortok said at his usual volume, apparently unfamiliar with the need for stealth.

  Rylin raised a hand to ward him to silence and started forward, counting doors until he reached the fourth on the left. Watching with inner sight, he saw no threads about the enclosure, but at touch of his hand showed him the door itself was locked or barred.

  “Ortok,” he said softly. “Get it open.”

  His ally charged on the instant. His impact rattled the door in its frame. Two strikes later it slammed wide. Ortok stumbled into darkness. Rylin came after, lantern shining.

  He’d reached Cerai’s laboratory. His light passed over the cases and shelves, then spilled on a figure in a blue khalat standing near the couch against the wall where poor M’vai had once been seated. Ortok exclaimed in surprise and leapt toward it.

  Rylin followed, still looking through the inner world. He couldn’t help seeing the framework of threads on everything about him. Burning most brightly were living objects, like Ortok, and his own raised arm, in his line of sight holding the lantern with its shifting matrix of fire.

  N’lahr’s energy wasn’t quite rocklike, for it was definitely there. It just didn’t shift. He also held four or more times as many structural threads as anyone Rylin had ever seen.

  Ortok let out a crooning sound, like a whining pup, and reached gently for the commander’s shoulder.

  “He’s not dead,” Rylin said.

  Ortok’s voice was soft, haunted. “But the flame of his life does not move.”

  “He was trapped before and revived,” Rylin said. “If anyone can save him, Varama can.” Then he added, “Be careful carrying him.”

  “He is my friend,” Ortok said simply.

  As the hulking kobalin scooped up the commander, Rylin moved for the office door. There was no time for subtlety. He felt for the magical threads about it, sensing that they stretched away from the office itself. While it was possible that they were triggered to the kind of sorcerous protection that had blasted Thelar, Rylin thought it more likely Cerai had tethered the door to herself to alert her if anyone forced their way in.

  He took no chances. The floor rumbled as he charged the door with one of the sofa tables. Its corner hit with a rattle and boom. There was no resulting crackle of magic, though Rylin felt threads activate, so he shoved the battering furniture aside, noted with satisfaction the door loose in its frame, and kicked it solidly near the lock. It swung into the wall beyond with a crack.

  He flung open the cabinet and grabbed the staff leaning within. As he pulled it clear, certain its radiant magic identified it for what he needed, the closed door in the office’s far wall swung open.

  Cerai halted in the frame, her sapphire ring lighting her way. Her cool blue eyes narrowed. She was opening her mouth to speak when he launched a blast of wind and knocked her back.

  The staff-like shaping tool in hand, he raced back to the laboratory, put a palm to the table, and leapt it. Cerai recovered fast and snapped threads of energy at him. They crackled through the air he’d just left.

  Rylin shouted at Ortok to go. The kobalin had been hesitating in the hall doorway with N’lahr in his arms. Rather than diverting around a couch, Rylin vaulted it and dropped. It had been the right call, for Cerai’s energies struck the couch and bits of fabric and fragments of wood blasted into the air.

  Ortok pounded away.

  “Surrender or die, Rylin!” Cerai shouted. He wasn’t about to raise his head, so instead he stuffed his hand into the padded satchel Varama had given him and leaned around the side of the couch.

  While Cerai had been alert, the movement still caught her off guard. The vial smashed open at her feet.

  Fire and oil sprayed in every direction and she leapt back from the flame.

  Rylin scrambled for the door. As he reached the threshold pain seared through his shoulder. He stumbled through the doorway and regained his footing.

  He saw the bulk of Ortok racing along the hallway ahead, still cradling N’lahr’s statue. He ran after. Behind him flame blossomed, casting red light into the hall. His armor was burned and smoking all around his left shoulder, and his arm hung uselessly numb and cold.

  Great. No time to worry about that. He shoved the tool under his good arm and fumbled with his pouch for the second and last of his fire vials, whipping it at the lab door he’d left. Cerai appeared in the hall in the moment just before its impact, and much of the contents struck her khalat. She screamed, and Rylin saw her hand rise to her face even as flame licked along her fingers.

  He had no love left for her, but dread tore at him as he raced on, the tool once more in hand. Ortok held the door, and Rylin shouted at him to keep moving. He came after. He wondered whether a healer would be able to fix his shoulder, and how long before the limb overwhelmed him with crippling pain.

  He risked a glance back before the door closed. Cerai strode purposefully, unhurriedly, after. The flame still roved over her, but energetic threads raced across her blackened features and smoking khalat. Rylin slammed shut the door.

  She might very well be impossible to stop. His worry lent him speed. He heard a final shout from her as he and Ortok vanished through the door below.

  Cutting across the courtyard was the fastest way to the hearthstone room, where Varama was to open the escape portal. Groups of Naor fought alongside Cerai’s soldiers; others fought beside the kobalin. Along one edge, jogging for the doorway, Rylin spotted a mixed band of squires and aspirants. Sword in hand, Elik held the door for his charges to venture into the fortress. He caught sight of Rylin and Ortok as they dashed in his direction and his eyes widened.

  Rylin spared a look behind him but didn’t see Cerai. He felt relief for only a moment, then reasoned she must be planning something else, which couldn’t be good.

  The squires and the three aspirants crowded past. “Go!” Elik shouted to them. “Straight on for the hearthstone room. Move!”

  They hurried. Probably none had actually seen the inside of the hearthstone room; probably Elik had made them memorize the citadel layout.

  “This is Ortok,” Rylin said. That would have to do for an introduction. “Where’s Tretton?”

  “He went after Tesra.”

  “She’s still alive?”

  “I believe so.”r />
  Rylin handed the tool to Elik as Ortok loped after the squires. “Get this to Varama. It’s even more important than N’lahr, believe it or not.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Rylin had just wanted his sword arm free and was about to say so when a cheer rose from the walls. Rylin saw the dragon dropping, one wing aflame. Figures on its back fell free, one clasped to the other. Immediately a rectangle of fabric sprouted from one of their packs. The two Naor were jerked backward, and descended in something less than a glide but not quite a plummet.

  Rylin cursed. He pointed with his good hand. “Get this tool to Varama and get out!”

  “But where are you going?” Elik demanded.

  He didn’t have time to answer. Rylin ran forward as the figures dropped. Five of Cerai’s soldiers raced along the battlement toward them with spears. Even if they missed, Vannek was headed for the wrong side of the wall, and was falling too fast besides.

  It was a long, long way for one of his own spells, but Rylin saw no other option, and reached with a blast of wind. He used the currents that were already out there and sent them curling back in a spiral that whipped Vannek and Muragan up and over the walls toward him. The spearmen missed their casts as the general and blood mage shot unexpectedly over their heads.

  Now the Naor drifted above the courtyard’s center. Too fast. Rylin swore that Vannek’s eyes met his for a moment even as he shaped the spell from his already breathless body.

  Panting, Rylin coaxed the wind further, to set the general and the mage beyond a huge kobalin at war with a band of Cerai’s troops. The two cleared them and descended swiftly, eight feet above, now six feet, drifting for the side of the fortress wall. Muragan dropped free.

  And then something slammed into Rylin’s already damaged shoulder. He didn’t feel the bite of a weapon so much as the impact that shook him. He spun and spotted a band of Naor pointing at him. Three were running his direction. They had separated him from the side of the courtyard where he needed to be, so he swerved past a dead man in time to evade another arrow, then jerked open a tower door. Once through, he slammed it shut, pausing to jam his knife through the lock. Then, breathing heavily, he looked to his shoulder to discover an arrow embedded there. Apparently khalats weren’t as resistant to damage if they’d been burned.