Season of the Dragon, page 4
They’d gone less than a mile when Juka decided she hadn’t been heard nearly enough for the day. Dust devils formed columns of sand around them, blocking their path toward Solia.
That’s what I get for praying.
Rhoji had to yell over the rumble of the lashing wind. “We need to take cover until this storm blows itself out.” He pulled on the reins, kicked Gambol’s ribs, and called out, “Hika!”
Gambol’s wide, flat feet and toes were made for running on the sands. He was unperturbed by the thrashing wind and sand. Quen wrapped her arms tightly around Rhoji and bounced hard on Gambol’s bony back as he trotted.
“Where are we going?” Quen’s voice was still dry as crisp bread.
Rhoji didn’t answer, but pointed.
Ahead, barely visible through the haze of dust, stood the towering natural stone sentinels known as the Staves. Like two massive timbers thrust into the ground by giants, the Staves served as a landmark for travelers from Solia north via the Trinity Road to the capital or west to Quipwi. In two days, their brother, Liodhan, would pass the Staves on his way to Solia with his herdwife, Zarate, their new daughter, Lumina, and the whole Jima Clan.
But the Staves were leagues away from Solia. How far did I run?
Quen allowed herself to rest against Rhoji’s back. Before long, they were in the long, cool shadow cast by the towering twin pillars of stone.
Rhoji pulled her from Gambol and sat her gently at the base of the eastern tower. It blocked most of the strongest winds whipping from the south. Rhoji unwrapped her keffla and opened her mouth, pouring warm water down her gullet. Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow and nearly choked as she spat it out. He poured again, more slowly this time, and she got a sip down and then another. Soon she had a hand on the water sac and pulled it to her, greedily downing Enara’s elixir of life.
“Easy now. You don’t want to make yourself sick.” His tone was gentle and without reproach.
Missing a chance to chide me? That’s unlike him. Her mouth wet again, she could finally speak. “What, no scolding?”
Rhoji unwrapped the keffla from around his eyes. “There will be time for that later. After I’m certain you will not die from this stunt you pulled.”
There it is. The judgmental edge in Rhoji’s voice Quen was accustomed to. “Why did you risk coming after me, anyway? There are no skins in it for you.”
A vein at his temple throbbed, and his lips were in a thin line. “Because if anything happens to you, Pahpi will blame me.” His voice held a bitter edge. Rhoji thrust the water sac in her direction.
“And here I thought for a minute that it was because you actually cared.” If he knew the truth about me, even fear of Pahpi’s retribution wouldn’t be enough to get him to help me. Quen sipped the water more slowly, savoring the sweet trickle down her parched throat. Whatever his motive, if Rhoji hadn’t searched for me… She shuddered, thinking of what might have happened.
She handed the sac back, and Rhoji took a long drink and eased down beside her, resting his back against the cool stone. The throbbing vein was gone. “You know it’s a fool’s errand running into the desert on foot when the sky is the color of sand. What could have possibly made you lose your damned mind?”
Quen considered telling him the truth. After all, she’d given Pahpi a tongue-lashing for lying to her. But she couldn’t admit the truth to Rhoji. Shared history, family obligation, and dread of Pahpi’s reproaches held their relationship together. But their sibling bond, though fraught with friction, was one of the few relationships she had. She couldn’t risk blowing it up entirely, so she withheld the truth.
Instead, she snuggled against his shoulder, wind-blown and weary. All she could say was “The Kentaro.”
His shoulder lost some of its tension.
The winds howled, and sand pinged against the stone. Tired from her ordeal in the haboob, Quen nodded off. All too soon, Rhoji gently shook her awake.
“The winds have calmed. Rouse yourself. Niyadi makes his way to slumber, and I want to get back to Solia before Vay’Nada’s shadow is full.”
She blinked and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. The sky was ablaze with orange as Niyadi, the little brother sun, marched toward the horizon. It was only a few hours until Hiyadi, the larger sun, would rise. But the shadow hours weren’t the time to travel in the Sulmére. Though short, full night was cold and black.
And it is only getting longer. As Niyadi made his once-every-three-generation march toward Vay’Nada’s realm, nights grew darker and longer. Incremental bit by incremental bit, they were losing ground to the Shadow.
Rhoji lent a hand as she tried to get astride Gambol, but he scampered away. The gods didn’t lift my curse after all. Gambol must have been more worried about Juka’s winds than me. Rhoji pulled sweet jishni root from his belt pouch and calmed Gambol. While he was distracted by the irresistibly sweet snack, Quen leaped onto his back in one lithe move.
The rocking motion of Gambol’s gallop lulled her into a waking dream state. She’d lost out on the chance to speak with Nevara, a Nixan as she was. But soon, Liodhan would arrive, and she’d get to meet her new niece, Lumina. She was an aunt, and thinking of spending time with a wee babe to spoil made her smile.
Rhoji broke the silence. “Did you spy on Pahpi and the Kentaro?”
The question pulled Quen from her reverie. She was loath to reveal all she’d heard. He’ll disown me if he learns the truth. She deflected his question. “Why do you ask? Do you know something about her?”
“About her? No. But it’s only a matter of time before Kovathas come asking questions of Pahpi.”
She sat up straighter. Kovathas were the long arm of the Dynasty, extending its influence beyond the capital to collect taxes and flex its copious muscle. In years past, Kovatha were rarely seen as far south as Solia. But last season brought a steady flow of Kovatha mages through town. Traveling merchants told disturbing stories of the growing fear invoked by Kovatha mages. People said they’d begun threatening to use magical torture to force people to pay huge levies to avoid being hauled to a Qülla prison. Pahpi complained to anyone who would listen about the Dynasty abusing its power to collect levies to fund its gluttonous appetites.
“Why would Kovathas question Pahpi?”
Rhoji harrumphed. “Do you pay attention to anything? Come on, Quen. It’s nearly your twentieth year. It’s time you learned more of the world than what lies within the walls of Solia.”
Quen couldn’t disagree, but it didn’t answer her question. “Is Pahpi in trouble?”
Rhoji shrugged. “Maybe not yet, but he soon will be if he doesn’t stop speaking ill of the new Dynasty taxes to every herdwife and cheesemonger who will listen. By Niyadi’s ass, it wouldn’t surprise me if Pahpi’s complaints against the Dynasty have already made their way to the ears of the Exalted in Qülla.”
Like a jolt of white-hot lightning splitting a summer-orange sky, the sensation of being pulled inward seized Quen. It was like it had been briefly in Santu’s Stand when Nevara issued her prophecy, only this time much stronger. The tang of metal filled her mouth, and her head swam. Acid swirled in her gut, bringing a wave of nausea.
Pain exploded behind her eyes, and she shut them tight. Smoke burned her lungs, and Quen coughed. Voices cried out in pain and horror, but the sound was warbly and distorted like it came from the end of a long tunnel. Fire crackled, and burning timbers popped and hissed. Quen gagged as the odor of burnt hair and flesh filled her nostrils.
Terrified by the horrific vision, Quen cried out.
“What in Hiyadi’s name? Quen, what’s the matter with you?”
The vision had been as vivid as reality. She’d coughed from the acrid smoke, yet no fires burned around them. There was only her and Rhoji astride Gambol, trudging up a dune.
The vision faded, and the pain receded. She gripped her head on either side and pressed lightly, as though she could push the lingering odor of death from her mind. “We must hurry.” She kicked at Gambol’s ribs, trying to urge him to run.
“What are you on about?”
She kicked again and shouted, “Hika!”
“Stop, Quen. You’ll spook him, and he’ll throw us.” Rhoji pulled on Gambol’s reins and stroked the animal’s neck, trying to soothe him.
“It’s Pahpi. I fear he’s in terrible trouble.”
Rhoji said nothing for a few moments, as if contemplating what she’d said. At last, he clicked his tongue and gave Gambol a gentle kick. “What kind of trouble?”
“I fear the worst kind.”
Chapter 4
Nearing
Nearing Solia, Rhoji descended over a rise above the town. He pulled Gambol’s reins and yelled, “Ho!”
The Lakmi River valley cradled Solia like an emerald shining in the sands. Bright-green shoots of gliniri grass edged the river’s banks, overflowing with snowmelt. White-plastered mud houses and Pijwar Herdclan’s colorful orange tents dotted the valley. But now, the air over Solia was grey with ash, the sky above the village yellow and thick with dark smoke.
Rhoji pointed to the ashen sky. “Fire in Solia. Yulina’s, maybe? With all the spilled ale and the grease-filled trough she never empties, one spark, and it would go.” He snapped his fingers.
“Maybe. But the smoke is billowing worst over the eastern flank, not the western.” Santu’s Stand anchors the eastern edge of Solia. A rope of fear pulled tightly across her middle.
Rhoji’s muscles tensed under her arms. He must think the same thing I do.
Without her urging, Rhoji kicked Gambol hard and shouted, “Hika!” as they took off down the rise.
Quen couldn’t take her eyes off the clouds of dark smoke billowing from Solia. The yellow-grey haze was thick and ominous. With all the desiccated wood, any small fire could cause the entire town to burn to the ground.
An immense black shadow hovered over the village. It moved silently and quickly, soon engulfing the town in shadow as if Vay’Nada was about to eat her village.
Juka’s winds whipped again, pressing as though intentionally holding them back. Sand scoured their path. Quen rubbed her eyes, sure the shadow she’d seen in the sky was an illusion. Like seeing shapes in clouds.
Despite the sand burnishing her face, Quen forced her eyes open. The silhouette remained over Solia, higher in the sky but still cloaked in swirling yellow-grey vapors.
Quen pointed to the sky. “Do you see that?”
“By Hiyadi’s light, what is it?”
She had no answer. As Quen gawked at the sky, an immense dark figure emerged from the dense cloud.
The looming specter was an impossible creature. Indrasian the First vanquished the flying demons from Indrasi nearly a thousand years ago. His prize was a dynasty still in power. It cannot be.
Impossible, yet there it was. The flying beast was… a dragon. And it soared over her village, covering it in a cloak of shadow.
Purple scales so dark they were nearly black covered the dragon’s massive head and body. The scales reflected the last bit of sunlight from the dying day and shimmered deep blue and turquoise. The flying beast stared in their direction, yellow eyes beneath furrowed brows of wispy black tufts of hair. Its eyes, nearly the same color as her amber-yellow one, were huge and glowed in the dim light of twilight. The dragon opened its maw, showing teeth as large as a grown man’s hand, long black whiskers protruding from its snout, covered in downy fur.
She tried to get out the words “It’s a dragon,” but her throat was too tight and dry to speak. Before she could say anything, the creature flapped its enormous wings and turned back to the plume of smoke. Back toward Solia.
The dragon opened its mouth wide and spewed blazing fire. The beast roared as it belched flame. Burning timbers popped and hissed, relinquishing their last hoarded moisture.
Though she saw it with her own eyes, Quen tried to convince herself it wasn’t real. Dragons existed in stories people told children who needed a fright to keep them from wandering. They were the beasts in heroic legends of men slaying a dragon to win favor.
Dragons didn’t circle the sky above her town.
The ridge on her neck throbbed, and she broke into a cold sweat. Her heart fluttered an unusual rhythm, and darkness played at the edges of her mind. She tried to do as Pahpi had taught her—to think of deep, dark water smooth as glass as she breathed deeply. Still Waters. With the Still Waters mantra, Quen regained composure. It grows ever more challenging to keep the Nixan at bay, but I won’t lose myself. Not today.
“By the light of the Three….” Rhoji’s voice was a hoarse whisper, barely audible over the howl of the wind. Urging Gambol with whistles and kicks, he shouted to Quen, “We need to get you to Solia.”
Considering the danger looming over Solia, it was odd for him to suggest. “Why?”
Rhoji whipped his reins from side to side. “Because there isn’t an animal alive that wants to be within a league of you.”
Rhoji was right about Quen’s ill rapport with animals, but the circling dragon wasn’t likely to spook like a witless kopek. But she kept the thought to herself. She urgently needed to get to Solia. Pahpi’s in trouble. I feel it. Quen didn’t want to admit to herself that the despised Nixan soul aided her instinct.
Still a mile away, the scent of burning wood filled her nostrils. Soot billowed about them as if they were in the yellow-grey cloud of smoke. Her lungs burned, and she coughed and gagged. The air tasted acrid.
The dragon banked and came directly toward them. A part of her wanted to yank the reins from Rhoji and take Gambol in the opposite direction.
Yet she couldn’t pull herself away from staring at it. The dragon’s purple-scaled nostrils flared, its long white horns peeking out from thick curls of glossy black hair.
Rhoji rode directly toward it. The dragon’s massive body swooped, claws outstretched. The beast was coming for them.
Her father’s voice came to her. “Still as calm waters.” She breathed deeply, trying her best to hush her racing hearts. Quen pictured Lumine, the patron goddess of Enara, her visage reflected in a nighttime pool of clear water, and she silently prayed. Sister, be with me. Bring me peace and stillness while the dragon’s heart freezes like the peaks of TasūZaj.
As Quen concentrated on chilling the dragon’s fire, she caught the odor of late summer lightning. Sounds were muffled, yet her hearts stammered, both beating in slow motion.
Quen reached for the sheath on her belt. Her movements were slow, as if she maneuvered through air as thick as honey. An eternity of time stretched between herself and the fire-breathing beast. She undid the loop on her scabbard, aware of the feel of the leather and the odor of burning wood and reeds. She pulled out the dagger Fano had gifted her, reassured by the weight of it. In the state of heightened perception, she felt the normally undetectable whorls in the polished bone handle.
The fiend was so near its hot breath made her face feel like she’d stuck it into Fano’s smithing fire. As the beast opened its enormous jaw, Quen hurled the dagger with all her strength, aiming for one of its brilliant amber eyes.
The dragon whipped its head away as it let out a bone-chilling screech. It reared back and turned away. There—behind the dragon’s colossal head. A rider? Yes, a passenger. Clad entirely in black, the figure blended so well with the dragon’s dark scales the rider was barely perceptible, especially in the waning light. The rider’s lips moved, apparently speaking, but Quen couldn’t be sure whether to themselves or the beast.
The dragon spoke in a voice so deep and low that Quen felt it more than heard it. Its language was an odd mixture of long vowel sounds and clicks, most of its words undecipherable. But one word sounded like a name. “Ishna!” The name was familiar, though there was no reason she should know it. Ishna.
Quen’s head throbbed, and the ridge on her neck burned like someone had stabbed her with a red-hot poker. This is even worse than when the Rajani woman, Nevara, was in Solia. The Nixan soul was trying to force its way out. Quen again called on the tranquility of Still Water, and it was enough to suppress her shadow soul for a time, anyway. I grow tired of playing this game with you, Nixan.
As soon as the dragon stopped speaking, the air above it shimmered like heat rising from summer sands. The winds, once howling, were silent and still. The rider called out to the dragon in a strange foreign tongue, and the beast turned and flew toward the shimmering pocket of air. As it entered the peculiar bit of sky, thunder pounded, and the air crackled with lightning energy, the odor of sulfur strong.
In an instant, the dragon and rider vanished. The shimmery air returned to normal. Juka’s breath became a soft breeze again, the sands still. The clouds over Solia cleared, though thick grey smoke remained.
“Stop. I need to find my dagger.” Quen didn’t wait for Gambol to stop and leaped from his back.
“Damn the dagger.”
Quen ignored Rhoji’s suggestion and searched the rocky sand for the dagger, her fingers trembling. Why didn’t the beast kill us? Was it an illusion, like how Pahpi used magic to appear younger and larger when Nevara visited Santu’s Stand?
But the dagger was gone. The Nixan soul within said, “It was no illusion.” Quen refused to listen to the Nixan, even when it was right.
The smaller sun, Niyadi, dipped below the horizon. Lumine was a crescent, giving scant light to the night. Vay’Nada’s shadow now cloaked Menauld in total darkness. Quen shivered.
“Come,” Rhoji said. “We need to check on Pahpi.”
Their village glowed orange on the horizon. A lump in her throat ached with tightness. The closer they got, the thicker the smoke. She wrapped her keffla yet again, another layer to keep out the stench of burnt hair.
The flames had turned traveling merchants’ tents into piles of ash. Her stomach roiled. Quen hoped people made it away from the market square before it burnt.
Quen came first to where Fano’s smithing tent had been. His great stone fire ring still glowed bright orange. Wood handles meant for axes and hammers were piles of white ash. Only blobs of melted iron and steel remained.
