Oathkeeper (36 page)

“Why go back?” Kari asked. “You aren't spellsworn. Stay here and advise my people.”

“No.” Tsan closed her eyes, taken aback by the sudden temptation to seize Kari's offer. “I want to kill Eldrennai. Aern, too, if they stand in our way.”

Kari placed the back of her knuckles against Tsan's scales, a gentle entreaty. “But surely it would be of greater advantage to your people to make peace with the Aern.”

Peace . . . Tsan weighed that mention and wondered briefly whether to bring up the treaty immediately or delay? Let the rest of her sympathetic narrative unfurl or not . . .

“They treat my race as if we were their favorite food . . . which, admittedly, we are.” Tsan shifted, crimson hind claw digging into the soft grass. “Besides, the Aern are incapable of a lasting peace. They always find an excuse to—” she brandished her claws in a mock slash, “—attack.”

“But you can't win against the Aern. The warsuits—”

“Are not as immortal as they once presumed.” Tsan shook her muzzle violently.

“I'd like you explain that last statement.” Kari stiffened.

Scales slid with silken smoothness across the rock as Tsan rose, tail lingering, soaking up one last measure of decadent heat. Flexing her claws into the grass, feeling the layers of dirt and moss below, the Sri'Zaur general yawned, drops of poison glistening at the tips of her upper fangs. Acid joined the flavor of her saliva as she closed her mouth.

Am I truly that nervous?
Tsan pondered. Unlike Zaur, Sri'Zaur were immune to their own venom, a definite benefit given that Tsan's poison—also unlike the Zaur's—was effective whether injected or consumed.
To have my venom sacs tensing like a hatchling's?

“They, even the so-called Armored, are killable,” Tsan answered, eyes half-closed, reaching out for the calmness of her surroundings, attempting to feed on it, like the heat she so loved. “By now Asvrin's Shades should have killed seven of the Overwatches.” Swaying softly with an improbably present breeze, she peered back at the queen. “But Asvrin, unlike Dryga, is one of my
overachieving
offspring . . . he will have slain no less than a dozen.”

“You truly believe that?” Kari frowned but made no move to rise.

“That he is one of my offspring?” Tsan said, deliberately misunderstanding the queen. “While it is true that the clutches do blend together from switch to switch, the memory fading, I still recall the last few.”

“May I assume you know that is not what I meant?” Queen Kari asked.

“Of course. And yes, I believe it. Why do you think I was so happy to be taken directly to the Arboretum of Hashan and Warrune?” Tsan dropped low again, forked gray tongue flicking out to taste an unfamiliar vibration. “I presume that, despite my impressive, if imperfect resistance to magic, you've had ample . . .”

No, not unfamiliar, just out of place. Tsan fought the urge to rush, trying to match the cadence of her words to the arrival of an Eldrennai with a princely gait.

“. . . ample time to read my spirit in its most relaxed state.” Easing herself down onto the grass, Tsan sprawled out on her side. Lying flat out, tongue flicking, would have given her a better feel for the approach of the Eldrennai, but Tsan wanted to avoid being obvious about it, settling for a combination between comfort, surveillance, and submissive display. “Everything,” Tsan said as she let her head touch the grass, “I've told you has been true.”

“You haven't mentioned the treaty.” Kari shifted nervously, then stopped herself.

Awkward to talk down to me this way, Weed? Give it time. Things are about to get even worse.

“My people want a treaty with the Vael.” Tsan rolled onto her back. “I presumed your Root Guard brought me here because you were already open to the possibility of an alliance or, alternately, because you wanted to execute me for my role in the fall of Tranduvallu.”

“Execute you?!” Royal hedge rose and anger assailed Tsan's nostrils as Kari's eyes bore holes in her, the queen's wide and impenetrable orbs of crimson revealing nothing of her thoughts. The anger was unexpected, coming on the utterance of the words “execute me” rather than “fall of Tranduvallu.”

Was it the reference to the killing of a prisoner Queen Kari found so shocking? Why was life so important to the Weeds when it came so easily and could be spent so lavishly to achieve one's military aims? Had Uled worked the trait into his floral creations so they would endure the hardships of slavery and breed with the Aern more readily?

“Your name will have a litany, to be certain, General Tsan.” Queen Kari's voice was hard and clipped. “Once we have come to an accord and you leave, you will never again be welcome within The Parliament of Ages except for those times when on official business, but to think that we would execute any being who seeks peace with us, no matter how misguided or distorted that being's overtures have been—”

Beyond the amber dome, Tsan sensed the vibrations of the Root Guard shifting positions. And
there
were the footsteps. Tsan thrilled at the timing.

“Remember that when your next guest arrives.” Tsan rolled to her belly, paws beneath her, ready for anything.

“What?” Kari asked.

“Footsteps,” Tsan hissed, “hard, arrogant, and without message or meaning. An Eldrennai. And . . .” Shifting to a sitting position, Tsan eyed the doors of living wood. “. . . as they are about to let the visitor interrupt, I will call him royalty.” Cocking her head to one side, Tsan's tongue flicked out and wavered in the air. “Ah . . .” The scent of Eldrennai, tinged with a sweet dangerous hint of Aern, colored by touch of Zaur . . . “The brave idiot who was poisoned at Oot and then saved by a Vael.”

Two Root Guards, Seizal and Arri, entered alongside a yellow-petalled young Vael clad in doeskin leathers with a heartbow on her back who fit the description one of Asvrin's Shades had relayed after the feint at Dark Gods Standing, a place other races called Oot. Despite her dislike for him, Dryga had been correct about that one. It hadn't started the war that Warlord Xastix had hoped it would, but the Shade had reported back with valuable news: the Aern were planning to kill the Eldrennai all on their own because of something the prince had done that still made little sense to Tsan.

But, if the intelligence about this idiot prince were to be believed, then why was he here? Some Aern in a warsuit, Tsan had half-expected, but an Eldrennai . . .

*

Susurrant laughter greeted Prince Dolvek, even more unwelcome than the noxious humidity unescapable this deep within The Parliament of Ages. And this, this Arboretum was even worse. He reached out to the plane of elemental water and air in an attempt to chill the sweat running down his back only to find a warm barrier blocking him.

Not unlike the wards some Artificers had at their disposal, this spell block walled off elemental planes from the physical world. Gentle heat flowed over him, far less abrupt than the jarring spike of pain Artificers tended to use, a discouraging nudge rather than a slap on the wrist.

Yavi elbowed the prince gently. “Hashan and Warrune don't let strange magic work this close to the center. I told you that.”

“What exactly is strange about elemancy?” Dolvek whispered, flushing with embarrassment. Would he be turning so red if Yavi and the other Vael had been wearing their samirs, those horrid veils they wore for the express purpose of helping Eldrennai control their urges? Possibly, but it was hardly rational to expect all these Vael to accommodate for a single Eldrennai.

Spotting the red-scaled Zaur chortling near a magnificent Vael in white who could only be Queen Kari, Dolvek's ill humor transmuted to anger. “And what is that thing doing here?!”

“Sunning itself?” Yavi squinted, her ears twitching. “Oops. No. Herself. And behave yourself, Gloomy, if you want Mom to help you.”

“Of course.” Clearing his throat, Dolvek knelt before the queen, head bowed. “I beg your pardon, Queen Kari. The presence of a Zaur . . .”

“Sri'Zaur, Prince Dolvek,” the creature purred, offering him an open paw, as if he might actually touch such a foul thing. “No?” It withdrew the paw. “I am Tsan, and you, I see, have taken to wearing armor based on the design Kholster Bloodmane dreamed up early in our people's little conflict. Before the advent of the warsuits, it was quite popular among the Aern. I smell more Zaur blood on it than Eldrennai, so I trust it has served you well?”

“It has.” Dolvek straightened, forgetting the queen. “How do you know my name?”

“Spies,” the reptilian thing answered merrily. “We find them useful for finding out things our opponents would prefer we didn't. I highly recommend them.”

“How dare you sp—?”

“I'm Yavi.” Another elbow from Yavi, this one strong enough to steal his breath, was slipped in with a smooth motion as if Yavi's abrupt curtsy to the reptile had been ill-considered and clumsy. “Could you forgive Dolvek and then formally introduce us, Mom?”

“Tsan, envoy of peace from the Zaur.” Queen Kari gestured with an open palm to the creature. “My daughter is forward, yet I remain pleased to present to you Princess Yavi.”

“A pleasure.” Tsan, the so-called envoy of peace, held out a paw, this time at an angle appropriate for Yavi to slide her own hand against the hideous thing's scales, back of her hand against the back of its paw. “And I suspect any exuberance on her part was perpetrated in a valiant effort at mitigating the prince's surprise at my presence. Rather than being at all insulted, may I say that I find your tact and your gentle reproach refreshing and impressive. I wish to express my condolences for the horrible loss we have inflicted in our overture of peace. It simply did not occur to us that you would approach the matter in as nonconfrontational a manner as I now suspect would have been more culturally appropriate.”

Yavi looked at her mother.

“I will explain that later,” Queen Kari said firmly. “Envoy Tsan has been sent to us with an offer of peaceful alliance from Warlord Xastix.”

“That's fabtacular!” Yavi grinned, and it melted Dolvek's heart so much he almost forgot the nonsense the Sri'Zaur had just spouted. “May I introduce you both to Prince Dolvek of the . . .” She avoided saying “Oathbreakers.” Dolvek heard it in the broken cadence of her speech and the momentary pained expression that graced her gorgeous face, but she changed it to “Eldren Plains” at the last instant. “He's probably not the best choice for what may become a formal negotiation of alliance between our—”

“Alliance?!” Dolvek shrieked, unable to hold it in any longer. “You would even consider such with something so . . .” Dolvek clenched his fists and stemmed the tide of outrage. He took in a single deep breath and held it for a ten count. “I again owe all present my apologies. To come to The Parliament of Ages seeking assistance and to judge others harshly when I am little more than a beggar at the gate . . . it is unforgivable. Within the last few days, I have had reason to question everything I ever thought I knew about the Aern and the . . . Oathbreakers. Perhaps, I must now adjust my understanding of the Za—the Sri'Zaur as well. If there could be peace between all of our peoples? Well, I could ask for nothing more.”

*

“Oh,” Tsan sniffed. He was far too composed, this pitiful example of Uled's race. Tsan had intended to save the knowledge until later, to let the Weeds pry it out of her after a series of dropped hints, but she had to knock this prince out of control, to cue that marvelous self-destructive instinct all Dolvek's people possessed. “There can be no peace between the Sri'Zaur and the Maker's race.”

*

“Uled created my people then tried to destroy them once we'd served our purpose. He took a peaceful race of thinkers and twisted our bodies to his alchemical will, then deliberately used us as an external threat against which to unite the Eldrennai under one king.

“No, we would happily make peace with our fellow creations. We would even consider peace with the Aern,
if
the noble Vael say such is possible, but not with Uled's cursed breed. We know what you do to those who show weakness . . . but now we are strong. Every stump-eared arrogant one of you must die.”

Yavi's mouth dropped open, revealing her unpruned dental ridges.

“Oh dear.” Tsan touched her forepaw to her chest in a very human gesture, much as Dolvek could recall Emma doing time after time back home whenever someone said something scandalous in the kitchens. “I'm sounding more like the Aern every moment.” She blinked at Queen Kari. “Won't this be fun?”

CHAPTER 26

LEAVE THE BONES

Mom!

A tug at Wylant's scabbard combined with Vax's voice in her head brought the prone Aiannai to instant wakefulness. She came up swinging: a downward strike with her right hand to dislodge the gauntleted hand on Vax's scabbard. Eyes blurry, her opponent seemed a mass of white and black.

Armor?

A warsuit!

Dienox had attacked her and she'd fought him off . . . then Kholster had been there with other gods.

“Sleep,” Sedvinia had said. But what then?

“He comes for the bones,” Silencer intoned. Deep and resonant, the warsuit's voice echoed off the walls as it caught Wylant's hand.

“Don't make me hurt you, Caz.” Wylant rose slowly, eyes locked on the crimson crystalline eyes inset within the skull helm of the Bone Finder's warsuit.

Silencer is worried
, Vax thought.

Why?
Wylant did not want Silencer's statement to mean what she feared it meant, but she knew she was right even before Vax confirmed her suspicions.

Caz is upset that you haven't made me a normal Aern yet
, Vax thought.

Can he talk to you?
Wylant shifted her wrist to see if Silencer would ease his grip. He didn't.
Even though you aren't fully awakened yet? But your father kept answering you out loud.