The White Dragon (81 page)

Darfire, I've killed a man.

"By all the Fires..." Pyron's shocked voice pierced her whirling senses. "
Mirabar?
"

Heat poured off her. She felt it. She opened her eyes and saw steam rising in a thick mist from her flesh. The
shir
wound on her arm—just a scratch really—throbbed with startling coldness against the heat consuming her. Blood flowed freely from it.

"
Sirana.
" Pyron knelt down beside her, his eyes wide with shock. "Are you... um..."

"I thought..." She licked her cracked lips.

"Someone get water!" Pyron instructed.

"
Now?
"

Mirabar tried again. "No." They should stay together as Najdan ordered. "I thought..."

"What?"

The cool night air washed over her. The heat exhaustion eased slightly, the consuming fire fading from her skin. "I thought..."

"Yes? What,
sirana?
"

The
shir
wound ached with bitter cold. "I thought you said they were retreating."

Pyron sighed. "Oh, for the love of Dar."

The girl was waiting where Ronall had left her. She helped
Torena
Chasimar off the horse and embraced her. The two women wept fitfully while Ronall staggered into the bushes and vomited until there was nothing left inside of him.

They were both staring at him when he emerged. He stared back, his mind a complete blank, his limbs shaking in reaction to everything he'd seen and done tonight.

"What do we do now?" the girl asked.

"How in the Fires should I know?" Ronall said irritably. "
You
urged me to save her."

"What about the
toren?
" the girl asked.

When he didn't respond, the girl looked at the
torena
. Chasimar shook her head. The girl started weeping again.

"Oh, stop that!" Ronall snapped. The girl wept harder. Ronall sighed and apologized. "I'm a little on edge," he explained. He could still hear Porsall's scream in his head, and he had a feeling he'd be hearing it for a long time to come. If he
had
a long time to come, which didn't seem likely.

"Where will we go?" the
torena
asked, weeping.

"What will we do?" the maid wailed.

"Three pity me," Ronall mumbled.
 

Elelar had her faults, but at least she didn't cry pathetically or fling herself on someone else's mercy when she was in trouble. Indeed, Ronall dearly wished she were here now, because despite the open insults and contempt she would subject him to, she would know what to do. And if she didn't, then she'd figure it out and get it done.

"No one and nothing defeats Elelar," Ronall muttered. "Certainly not a pack of rabble, two weeping women, a nervous horse, a dead man, and nowhere to go on a dark-moon night."

His wife, Ronall knew with bleak certainty, wouldn't have let them kill Porsall. She'd have thought of something.

No, he was wrong, he realized. Porsall and Chasimar were Valdani. Elelar would have watched with pleasure—then urged the crowd to kill Ronall, too.

"What shall we do?" The
torena
turned to Ronall.

He sighed. "You're going to instruct your maid to give back the things she stole from me." He ignored Chasimar's gasp and continued, "Then we're going back to the inn where I paid for the privilege of bedding her earlier this evening. You two can sleep in my bedchamber. I won't be needing it, since I will be downstairs for the rest of the night, depleting the inn's liquor supply." Hearing no objection to these plans, Ronall added, "In the morning, we'll..." He stopped, scowled, and concluded, "We'll confront the morning only when we absolutely have to. Agreed?"

The men helped Mirabar to her feet, and she worked on regaining control of her blazing wall of fire as it crept over the dark mountainside. But she couldn't drag it any farther, not by herself. Especially not after what she'd just been through.

Darfire, I've killed a man.

She was shaking. His screams, his struggles, the smell of his burning flesh...

Tansen was right. Killing someone was not a thing to take lightly. Not a vow to make in haste and in anger.

No more assassins came out of the dark to murder her, so it seemed that Pyron was right, after all. They were retreating.

Eventually two
shallaheen
appeared out of the night; rebel inhabitants of the Guardian camp. They were bloodstained and battered, but still alive. Najdan had instructed them to bring Mirabar back to the encampment, which was now secure. The rest of the men were to round up survivors.

Najdan was already in camp when Mirabar arrived. He observed her disheveled condition and scorched clothing, but he made no comment. It had been a battle, after all.
 

He had succeeded in his attempt to capture an assassin. There was no time to shield Mirabar and the other Guardians from the brutal facts of war with the Society. Najdan staked out the prisoner in one of the caves and began interrogating him.

It was a long, ugly night. Survivors trickled back into camp, wounded and dazed. All night long, Mirabar identified the dead when she could, and she prepared the bodies for the mass funeral pyre she would burn once everyone was accounted for.

All night long, the screams and howls of Najdan's captive echoed around her and the other survivors.

Tears poured hotly down Mirabar's face. More than once, she escaped to the bushes to be sick. More than once, she gazed down at the recovered corpse of someone she'd known since childhood.

The morning sun was bright when Najdan finally emerged from the cave. He looked gray, grim, and exhausted. Mirabar thought she knew what the sudden silence meant.

"The assassin is dead?" she asked hoarsely.

Najdan nodded and accepted the hot tisane she offered him. No one else would even look in his direction. She ignored them and sat beside him.
 

"Najdan..." She began, trying not to weep. More tears would not help now.

"He admitted they'd been sent to capture some Guardians," Najdan said wearily. "At least two, no more than four."

"Why?" she asked, cold with fear.

"He insisted he didn't know." Najdan closed his eyes. They looked sunken. "I think he was telling the truth."

"Who was the waterlord?"

"Geriden."
 

"I don't know that name."

"He's very minor." Najdan opened his eyes again. "His allegiance is to Kiloran."

She started trembling. "Kiloran wanted them captured?"

"The assassin didn't know, but it's what I believe. Now that the sun is up, we can start tracking them. If, as I suspect, the trail leads to Lake Kandahar—"

"Najdan." More tears flowed down her face. She couldn't stop them.

He saw her tears, her trembling, her horror. "
Sirana?
"

"Tashinar is gone."

He knew what was worse than death. "No, the searchers have missed the body, that's all," he said quickly. "You and I will look—"

"I've searched. I've made the men search again. She's gone." Mirabar shuddered. "They've taken Tashinar to Kiloran."

Tansen knelt on the banks of the stream that ran between the smoldering ruins of Abidan's and Liadon's houses. He'd just ordered his people to prepare to retreat and scatter, in case unexpected Society reinforcements arrived later. Abidan and Liadon were dead, and the Shaljir River was free. Tansen didn't intend to lose any more people here, now that these goals were accomplished; the blazing funeral pyres were as big as he'd let them get today. The chanting of the Guardians shivered through him, darkening his mood even as the sun brightened the sky.

However, this water was free now, and he was filthy and thirsty. So he pulled his tunic over his head and sluiced water over his torso, letting it wash away the blood, though the soot was more stubborn. Then, battle-weary and heartsick over lives lost, he drank...

...Josarian had helped Tansen down to the river when the fighting was over; but he had not yet spoken a word to him. Not since Tansen had slaughtered Zimran even as Josarian begged him not to.

Feeling light-headed and weak, Tansen let the icy waters of the Zilar wash the blood off his skin, knowing that Josarian would continue to see it there long after it was gone. The
zanareen,
who had sent Tansen's rescue party in the right direction in time to save Josarian's life, now stood guard around Josarian, chanting, praying, giving thanks that the Firebringer was safe. He ignored them. They elevated Tansen in their praises, for he had come to save their leader. He ignored them, too.

Weak, exhausted, and in pain, Tansen barely had the strength to sluice the bitterly cold water over his body.

"Here," Josarian said at last, his voice subdued, "let me. You're going to fall in headfirst in another minute."

"No, I—"

"Sit back," Josarian snapped.

He sat back.

Josarian soaked a cloth in the water and then wiped gingerly at the edges of Tansen's seeping
shir
wound. "It looks worse again."

"Oh."

"You should rest."

"We must leave here."

"Did you know about..." Josarian's voice broke. He looked away for a moment. "Did you know Zimran would be the one to lead me into the trap?"

"I..." He took a shallow breath, trying not to strain the wound. "Yes, Josarian."

"We were born only three months apart." Josarian dunked the cloth into the river again. "We shared everything as boys. As men, we..."