Dragon War: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Three (26 page)

She heard a rustle, then Kyaphar stood beside her, clutching a short wooden rod adorned with eagle feathers. “Perhaps you didn’t need my help after all,” he said with a smile. “I’ve never seen anyone wield a sword quite like that.”

“I appreciate it nonetheless,” Rienne said. She looked around at a wide circle of barbarians watching her. They had kept their distance while she fought the dragons, and they seemed reluctant to approach now that she’d killed both wyrms, but she suspected their leader would soon drive them forward again. “Can you get us up and out of here?”

In answer, Kyaphar gave a piercing whistle, and his hippogriff swooped downward. But the encircling barbarians also seemed to take the whistle as a signal to charge. With a ragged shout, “Kathrik Mel!” they surged in from all sides.

Kyaphar held out his feathered totem, and a blast of icy wind threw barbarians back into their fellows, collapsing one side of the closing circle. Rienne crouched and waited for the nearest ones to reach her, but the hippogriff was faster. Kyaphar leaped onto its back before its feet touched down, and he held a hand out to Rienne. She swung Maelstrom in a wide sweep that killed three plague-marked men, then took Kyaphar’s hand and vaulted into the saddle behind him. A pair of shifters, their bodies and faces warped in their bestial rage, pounced on the hippogriff as its wings beat the air. Kyaphar kicked at one as Rienne slashed at the other, then the hippogriff bounded up and out of reach.

“Thank you again,” Rienne said. All her pain and exhaustion suddenly crashed down on her, making her vision swim for a moment—or perhaps it was the vertigo of their hasty takeoff. “How goes the battle?”

“Poorly,” Kyaphar said over his shoulder. “The Blasphemer’s horde keeps pushing our defenders back. Even our bears can’t stand against the dragons, let alone the farmers who call themselves soldiers. There are only a handful of us who are making any difference in the battle, and most of us are as tired and bloodied as you are.”

“What about the seal?”

“The Blasphemer marches at the back of his forces—there.” Kyaphar
pointed down and behind them, turning the hippogriff slightly to give Rienne a better view. “He has almost reached the outer lines.”

From their altitude, the figure Kyaphar identified as the Blasphemer was a tiny shadow against a wall of flame. The forest blazed at his back, and he seemed to wield tongues of fire like whips to drive his horde forward. Even at such a distance, the sight of him brought her dream vividly to life in her memory—his demonic visage, his sword alight with blood red fire. Darkness closed around her vision.

Kyaphar caught her before she slipped off his mount, jolting her back to her senses. Only then did she see what Kyaphar had been trying to point out—the dimly glowing purple line that she had seen from the sky before the attack had already been crossed by the front lines of Kathrik Mel’s horde, and the Blasphemer himself would reach it soon.

“Are you hurt?” Kyaphar asked, his arm awkwardly holding her in place, pressed against his back.

“I’m fine. We should head back down. We have to stop him.”

“The Mosswood Warden is planning to lead a counterattack to drive the Blasphemer back from the seal. We will join her shortly, but you’ll see a healer first.”

“No, really, I’m fine.”

“You’re covered with blood.”

“Dragon blood! I’ve killed four dragons—”

“And no one alive can take down four dragons without suffering a single wound. Look at your shoulder. You’ll see a healer.”

Rienne looked down at her shoulder, where she had a vague memory of being injured. It did look terrible—the gold dragon’s fangs had pierced and torn the flesh, and it must have had fire in its mouth as well, for both skin and clothing were scorched black around the wound. She felt dizzy again, and looked away. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll see a healer.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll have you back on the front lines in no time.”

Rienne closed her eyes and rested her head against Kyaphar’s shoulder.

*  *  *  *  *

When she opened her eyes again, Rienne saw trees stretching up to a smoke-filled sky, and Kyaphar’s face looking down at her. The Sky Warden was carrying her, and his face betrayed his concern even as he smiled with relief. “Good morning,” he said. “We’re almost to the healer now. Stay with me, all right?”

She could manage only a nod. She watched his face as he carried her a dozen more paces, then she heard someone say, “Put her there.” Kyaphar looked around, took a couple of steps, and gently laid her on a bed of moss at the roots of one of the towering trees.

Startled, Rienne tried to lift her head and see where she was. A healer, to her mind, meant an heir of House Jorasco, a skilled halfling who combined the magic of the Mark of Healing with careful study and perhaps prayers for divine intercession. The Jorasco Houses of Healing were immaculately clean and almost as comfortable as the hostels run by the other dragon-marked halflings, House Ghallanda. Her mind had not been prepared for a bed of moss.

Nor could she have anticipated the healer, a shifter woman clad in leather and fur. Her wild mane of hair was woven with beads and bones, making her look every bit as savage as the shifters in the Blasphemer’s horde who had tried to pull the hippogriff back down to earth with their claws. Even so, she smiled as she crouched at Rienne’s side, and Rienne instantly warmed to the compassion in the woman’s eyes.

“So you are the dragonslayer,” the shifter said. “I am honored to have you in my care, Lady Alastra.”

“Thank you.”

“I am Kauna.”

As the healer spoke, Rienne saw an enormous bear lumber up behind her, then realized that she could still see the trees and sky through the bear’s smoky form. Kauna smiled and looked over her shoulder at the bear, then back down at Rienne.

“The bear is my link to the spirit world.” The smile faded from her face. “The spirits are troubled this morning. We must get you back to the battle.”

Kauna produced a basin and washed Rienne’s shoulder. Pain stabbed through her at first, but then the bear started a low grumble and she felt better. She could barely hear the low pitch of its voice, but it seemed almost like a song, and its vibrations soothed away the pain and weariness from her body. Kauna began to hum softly as well, and Rienne felt warmth spread gently up from the moss beneath her, as if she were drawing strength through roots like the tree that towered above her.

She closed her eyes again, lost in the peaceful song. She felt as though a warm river washed over her body, carrying away all her aches and wounds, cleansing her and refreshing her spirit. She started drifting to sleep, reached for it with longing—

The bear spirit roared—a terrible, pained sound that jolted Rienne awake. Kauna spilled her basin in surprise, and Rienne saw her panicked face as she looked at the bear.

“There is no more time,” Kauna said. “On your feet, Lady Alastra. Kyaphar will take you where you must go.”

As Rienne got to her feet, her eyes fixed on the bloodstained water from Kauna’s basin as it slowly seeped into the earth.

A
door slammed somewhere in the cathedral, jolting Aunn to his feet. He shook his head to clear it and looked down at the mosaic. Tira’s face in colored tile seemed to smile back at him, urging him on his way.

“I am yours,” he whispered, “and if by my life or death I can make your flame burn brighter, I will.”

The noise had come from an open doorway across the sanctuary from where he’d entered, so he crept to that entrance and listened. A stairway led down, presumably to offices or storerooms, perhaps catacombs. He heard footsteps echoing in the stairwell, but they receded as he listened. He followed them, cupping his glowstone in his hand to light the stairs as he descended. At the first landing, he found a door, which he suspected led to another alley outside the cathedral—probably the door he had heard.

He felt as if he were walking in a dream, moving for the sake of moving without knowing why, with no idea who or what he was following. Was it some angel of the Silver Flame sent to lead him to what he sought? A criminal using the cathedral as a hiding place, drawing him down into an ambush? A haunting spirit? He had no idea, but he felt drawn to follow it, and the part of his mind that questioned why was not strong enough, or perhaps awake enough, to stop him.

Light washed over the bottom of the stairs, and Aunn pocketed his glowstone as he moved to the shadows at the outer edge of the stairway. A narrow passage stretched back under the cathedral from the bottom of the stairs, with doors every few yards on both sides, and at least one intersection where passages branched out in each direction. Everbright lanterns hung at intervals from the low ceiling, bathing the entire hall in bright light. And the figure turning a corner at the far end of the hall gave more credence to the haunting spirit idea—it looked like Kelas.

He felt a brief tingle of fear, but stifled it. After all, he had seen Kelas just the night before—for that matter, he had
been
Kelas. The figure in the hall was more likely to be the changeling, Vec, than some kind of ghost. And that suggested that he’d been right to come to the cathedral. Or at least, Vec shared his suspicion that Kelas might have kept useful information there.

Aunn started to pursue the shade or changeling or whatever it was, but he stopped just short of the doorway. The cathedral cellar looked like a labyrinth, a perfect place for an ambush. There could be Royal Eyes lurking behind every door in the hall, waiting for him to walk into their midst.

He hesitated for just a moment, then decided he had to take the risk. If Kelas had used the cathedral as a base of operations, then some clue to help Aunn unravel Nara’s plans might be in this cellar, and that was worth risking his life for. He slid his mace from his belt and stepped through the doorway.

The walls became the rocky sides of a blasted canyon surrounding him, the floor was strewn with rubble, and the low ceiling turned into a smoky red sky far overhead. He was in that other Labyrinth, with the demons of the Wastes a very real and present threat. He could feel the presence of the shapechanging fiend that had attacked him there, wearing first his own, new face, then so many other faces in quick succession—Vor’s, Dania’s, Kelas’s, and the shape of a demon bear. But he also felt the presence of the Silver Flame, the presence that had driven the fiend from him in the Wastes. He felt a surge of magic, like a knot in his chest suddenly loosed, and the illusion vanished in a flash of white light. The cellar was just plastered walls and tiled ceiling again.

“What is going on here?” he muttered.

Clutching his mace, he hurried as quietly as he could to the point where the second passage crossed the one he was in. No unseen assailants leaped from doorways, and as he peered down the crossing passage he saw no sign of danger. He stepped through the intersection and down to where he’d seen Kelas turn the corner. The only footsteps he could hear were his own, as much as he tried to soften them.

A door stood open halfway down the corridor, and Aunn could see a shadow cast into the hall from a light in the room beyond. He cursed his new armor and boots, which creaked as he crept down the hall. As he drew near the open door, he heard the rustling of papers, drawers sliding open and banging closed. Perhaps the other visitor was making too much noise of his own to hear the sounds of Aunn’s approach.

He was only three steps from the door when the noises from inside the room stopped.

“Who’s there?” a voice called from the room. It was not Kelas’s voice, but a woman’s. Familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

Aunn’s mind raced. His first instinct was to put Kelas’s face back on, to swagger into the office full of bluster and rage, and he actually felt his face begin to change before he reminded himself to stop. “My name is Aunn,” he said, addressing himself as much as the woman in the room. He slid his mace back into his belt and inched toward the open doorway.

The woman laughed, high and musical, and Aunn finally recognized the voice. “Colonel Tolden?”

The laugh cut off abruptly. “Do I know you?”

Aunn took the last step into the doorway, hands in front of him, palms out. Janna Tolden sat behind a large wooden desk, with a crossbow cocked and pointed at his chest.

How did I mistake her for Kelas? he wondered.

Her hair was the same light shade of brown as Kelas’s, and that might have been enough to explain his mistake. She wore it only slightly longer than Kelas had, framing her face and brushing the lines of her jaw. She wore a bulky traveling cloak, so he hadn’t really seen her body, which was nothing at all like Kelas’s.

“We have met,” he said, “though you wouldn’t know this face.” No one would.

“Or the name,” Janna said. She scowled. “So you’ve lied to me before. Who were you pretending to be?”

“Ah, that’s a complicated question.” Answering it would be tricky. How much did Janna already know?

“No, it’s not. It’s a very simple question. Who did you claim to be?”

I’m through with lies, Aunn thought. “General Jad Yeven.” Her eyebrows rose. “The real general died at the battle of Starcrag Plain. From then until he was reported dead, I wore his face.”

Aunn watched as her eyebrows drifted back down her forehead, her eyes lost their focus and strayed to the side, and her brow furrowed. He imagined her thoughts, as she tried to recall every interaction she’d had with him, believing he was Yeven. There hadn’t been much, but she had always adopted a much more flirtatious manner in private with him than he would ever have suspected her capable of, judging from her more public persona.

“That explains a lot,” she said, bringing her gaze back to him. “So who are you really? A Royal Eye?”

“Yes. Or at least, I was until recently.”

“You worked for Kelas, then.”

“Yes.”

“Where is Kelas?”

“Dead.”

“At the Dragon Forge?”

“Yes.”

Janna sighed and pushed a drawer in the desk closed. Had she been looking for something Kelas might have brought back from the Dragon Forge? Gaven’s shard, perhaps?