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  “A war then?” Jith asked breathlessly.

  “Barely even that. It had been a hard winter, and we did not expect them to join us in battle so soon,” RuuKag replied. The hall was now full of gnomes, but he no longer cared. To speak the words unburdened him. “When their Legions were reported, there were few that the rebel clans could field. Everyone who could hold a blade was pressed into service—many of them barely trained youths, and I counted myself among them.”

  Jith was in awe. “You joined the battle?”

  “What choice did I have?” RuuKag snapped. “I was the son of the Clan Elder—an honored warrior with ancestors covered in glory for a hundred years! I had grown up on stories of fortune in battle. It was all such a fabulous game to me. Here was my chance to add to the name of my clan, to add to the glory of my ancestors, to . . . to . . .”

  “To what?” Jith urged.

  “To prove myself to my father,” RuuKag roared. “To show the rest of the clan that I wasn’t just a child of privilege but that I, too, could stand with my ancestors and lay claim to my father’s armor.”

  “What happened?” Jith asked.

  RuuKag sat back and lifted his head. He could see the field before him as though he were there once more. “We formed a line as we had been taught. None of us were tried in battle—we barely knew how to hold a sword much less use it against a cunning enemy. We were supposed to be in reserve—not to be used in the battle itself—but the lines before us broke. The Legions of Rhonas stormed into the gap, pushing back the lines to either side, trying to flank them. But our leader was an old warrior whose mind had grown brittle and his judgment stale. He saw the gap in the lines and ordered our unit to charge into the bloodiest part of the battle.”

  “And what happened?” Jith whispered.

  “I . . . I couldn’t move,” RuuKag replied in a voice that felt detached for the images in his mind. “I saw the death and the blood and the slaughter in front of me, and I just couldn’t move.”

  The room was filled with gnomes now, but only the sound of RuuKag’s quiet voice was heard.

  “The line closed again as the manticores fought back,” RuuKag continued. “As it turned out, the charge was in vain; the line would have closed anyway, and all those young manticores who stood next to me and charged died for nothing. Yet there were a number of us who just didn’t heed the call—and we lived. It would have been better for us to have died that day–we were branded as the cowards that we were. We lived—and that was our shame.”

  RuuKag paused and looked up. Gnomes filled the story-cavern and were standing at the entrances. Each was facing him in rapt attention, sadness in their eyes.

  Sadness for him.

  RuuKag was now intent on letting all the words come out. He had forgotten his urgent reasons for departing. He spoke of returning to his father’s clan, his shame of a coward son. He told of his banishment and the tears and howls of his mother echoing in his ears as he departed into the Vestasian Savanna.

  He spoke of his longing to die.

  His words spilled from him throughout the night in one tale that was many tales: the tale of his enslavement to the Devotions of House Timuran; the tale of Drakis teaching him the pain of knowing the truth and RuuKag’s longing for the peace of not knowing at all; and finally the tale of Belag and Drakis leading them across the savanna and how a dishonored manticore now stood on the edge of a knife trying to decide between the oblivion of the elves and the hope of a life at last.

  At last, RuuKag stopped, all his words spent. He looked up into the eyes of the gnomes and settled at last on those of Jith.

  The young gnome looked at the manticore with his large, watery eyes . . . and gently smiled.

  RuuKag looked at the ground.

  Jith stepped quickly over to the manticore, moving beneath his face and gazing up as he spoke. “Thank you, RuuKag-ki. Thank you for your story. We understand now.”

  RuuKag took in a long, deep breath.

  Jith took the manticore’s huge paw with both his small hands. The gnome then touched his forehead to the back of RuuKag’s furry grip.

  “Your story begins again,” Jith said. “Now begin with ‘I, RuuKag, of the family Hak’kaarin.’ ”

  Then, each in turn, the mud gnomes stepped up to RuuKag and, taking the manticore’s paw, placed their foreheads to the back of his grip.

  The gnomes were still doing so when Drakis found him the next morning.

  CHAPTER 37

  Different Roads

  “KEEP UP!” Urulani growled.

  “What is your hurry?” Mala snapped. “You said it was less than half a day’s walk, and the sun has barely risen.”

  “It’s dangerous out here in the open, princess.” If anything, Urulani quickened her own pace a little. “And can you see those peaks ahead of us?”

  “Those hills?” Mala sniffed. “You call those peaks? I’ve climbed bigger hills just to get a good look at real peaks!”

  “Really?” Urulani laughed. “Well, then, you won’t mind climbing those. We call them the Sentinels, and those ‘hills’ have kept our clan free of elven interference since before your entire family was groveling and begging for scraps from the Rhonas table.”

  They had left the Hak’kaarin mud city only a short time before, just as the first hint of dawn lightened the eastern horizon. Urulani led them northward on a narrow path that occasionally vanished for long stretches. Still, the dark-skinned woman always picked up the trail again as it ran northward toward the Sentinel Peaks.

  It was true, Drakis reflected, that these mountains were not as tall as the Aerian Range that they had left so far behind them to the south, but they were not that much shorter and were of a far more formidable aspect. The peaks looked like sharpened teeth that erupted from the ground at nearly vertical angles. Urulani said they would be crossing them, but from where he walked now on the savanna, even he was skeptical as to how they would manage it.

  “Drakis! Did you hear that?” Mala turned to the warrior striding next to her under the early morning glow. “Did you hear what she said to me?”

  Drakis drew in a deep breath as he strode next to her under the soft glow of early morning light. “Yes, Mala; I heard.”

  “Well?” Mala demanded. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Yes, pray tell,” Urulani snarled. “Just what are you going to do about it?”

  Drakis rolled his eyes upward in an appeal to the stars. He was no longer sure that he believed in the gods; the only gods that he knew were those of the Rhonas pantheon, which had been instilled in him by his slave masters, and now he questioned everything that they had taught him. Still, at this moment, he would have preferred some divine answers—or even an inspired lightning bolt or two—to help him find a way to keep Mala out of Urulani’s way.

  Thus far this morning, the gods had wisely stayed out of the fight as well.

  “Please,” Drakis urged. “We need to get into the safety of those mountains . . .”

  “So you’re siding with her?” Mala shouted, her voice squeaking at the end.

  “No!” Drakis said quickly. “I’m not siding with anyone . . .”

  “She said we groveled for scraps!” Mala fumed.

  “Look, Mala,” Drakis shrugged. “She just doesn’t understand how it was or she wouldn’t have . . .”

  “I don’t understand how it was?” Urulani had the voice of a commander that carried over everyone else when she chose to use it. This was one of those times. “Maybe I don’t understand how it is that you ‘cattle’ managed to find your way out of your pens and wander out here into the world where people actually live and die for something more than their master’s pleasure.”

  “Now, wait just a moment,” Drakis said.

  “See? Do you see what kind of a person you’ve entrusted our lives to?” Mala jabbed Drakis with her finger. “She has no respect for you or any of us!”

  “Respect?” Urulani roared back. “And just what have you
done, little pale princess, to earn my respect?”

  “Ladies! Stop it! Please!” Drakis held up both his hands in exasperation. “Can we all just calm down and . . .”

  “This,” Urulani threw her head back in derision, “from the Domesticated Warrior!”

  Drakis turned to appeal to the rest of their companions, but there was no help in sight. RuuKag seemed to be enjoying the row with deep amusement. Ethis, Belag, and even Jugar all walked behind him, keeping a distance that also kept them out of the argument.

  Only the Lyric quickened her step toward him. She smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Drakis! I’m only too glad to help.”

  “You are?” Drakis asked dubiously.

  “Of course!” the Lyric said, her eyes bright. “They’re both wrong and I’ll be happy to tell them why.”

  Drakis looked again to the stars and offered a prayer. It was going to be a very long day.

  “I have news, Inquisitor!”

  Jukung looked up, his face shadowed by the deep hood pulled over his head. The new Inquisitor sat still beneath a great tree of the savanna as he had for two days awaiting just such news.

  “Speak, Codexia Mendrath,” Jukung said.

  The robed newcomer bowed and then began. “Word comes from the savanna, west of Tempest Bay. There are several mud cities of the Hak’kaarin in the northern regions of the Vestasian Savanna.”

  “I do not need a geography lecture,” Jukung snarled.

  “Yes, Master Inquisitor,” Mendrath responded at once. “There are stories now being circulated among the mud gnomes in that region about a man named Drakis who is traveling with the gnomes. He is said to possess great powers and to be the fulfillment of prophecy.”

  Jukung looked up sharply. “And his companions?”

  “The story speaks of two women, manticores, a chimerian, and a dwarf.”

  Jukung smiled. “A dwarf! Yes, that is news, indeed! Where? Where are they?”

  “The Hak’kaarin move a great deal,” Mendrath replied. “There are a dozen or so of their cities across the region where they were last seen.”

  “And Inquisitor Soen?” Jukung asked quickly. “What news of him?”

  “He is moving toward those same mud domes that the Hak’kaarin call their cities.”

  Jukung stood up at once. “Then we must get there before him so that we may greet him properly. Contact the Quorums wherever they are and have them journey at once to the mud dome cities of the northern Savanna. Have them determine if Drakis and his companions have been there.”

  “And what are their orders then?” Mendrath asked.

  Jukung smiled once more. “Our orders are explicit, Codexia. Capture this Drakis and bring him to me.”

  “It will be done,” Mendrath said and turned to move away.

  Jukung’s arm restrained him.

  “There is more.” Jukung removed his hood, exposing his hideously deformed face. “Anyone who has had contact with this Drakis—anyone at all—is to be killed at once.”

  “I . . . I am not sure that I understand the order, Master Inquisitor,” Mendrath said. “There are entire cities of these gnomes who may have had some contact with this Drakis human . . .”

  “And you will find them and kill them all,” Jukung said quietly.

  “That could be thousands of gnomes,” Mendrath said, still uncertain he understood the order correctly.

  “I do not care if it numbers in the tens of thousands,” Jukung said, irritation rising in his voice. “Towns, cities, females, children . . . if they have had contact with this human pestilence, they are to die!”

  “But, Master Inquisitor!”

  “Do you question the Imperial Will?” Jukung screamed. “This is the order of the Keeper of our Order and the direct expression of the thoughts of the Emperor! Will you shirk your duty and forfeit your honor to his glorious ideal?”

  “No, Master Inquisitor!” the Codexia stiffened.

  “They will die!” Jukung said, his breathing labored as he spoke. He reached up with his right hand and ran his fingers lightly along the melted skin of his face. “They must pay for what they have done. The Emperor has declared them poisoned to his Will by this Drakis. Any creature that has any contact with him must die . . . they must all die!”

  CHAPTER 38

  Sondau Clans

  “ELDERS OF THE SONDAU,” Urulani said, dropping to one knee and placing her right hand against the floor as she bowed her head before the three older men. She knelt in the center of the lodge, the long building that served as the heart of the Sondau Clan’s society. The walls were framed from wood hewn from the surrounding forests and carved intricately with the tales and legends that formed the foundation of their laws and beliefs. The vaulted ceiling was supported by thick beams, each carved with different and portentous figures overhead. The floor was planked from the same wood as the walls though this was scrubbed and sanded to a smooth and carefully maintained finish. Flaming torches mounted to the walls and angled out above the floor filled the space with guttering light. “I am Urulani, daughter of the Sondau Clan. I have done as the Elders have asked.”

  “The Elders praise the gods for your return—and are astounded that you should return, it seems, on the very heels of your departure,” stated the balding Elder with the short cropped hair who sat in the middle of the three. “Thus said, we welcome you before the Elders’ Council.”

  Urulani stood at once. “The Elders honor me.”

  “As apparently do the gods to an extent we had not hoped possible,” said the man with the long, iron-gray hair pulled into a ponytail at the nap of his neck.

  “As you say, Elder Harku,” Urulani replied, glancing toward the ceiling.

  “You have returned with him so quickly?” asked the bearded man on the left who was sitting back in his chair.

  “I have done as the Council has asked,” Urulani responded. “I have the man and, I must also report, several of his companions with him. I thought it prudent to bring them as well—and not risk their tongues waggling once we had left.”

  “Wise, as always, is our Urulani,” nodded the man with the iron-gray hair.

  Urulani bowed slightly. “Elder Kintaro honors me once more.”

  The central, balding Elder leaned forward. “What is your report, Urulani?”

  The tall black woman opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and then began. “As instructed by you, Elder Shasa, I journeyed southward through the Cragsway Pass and onto the Vestasian Plain. I made my way southward to the first of the Hak’kaarin mud domes to begin my search.”

  “That was but three days ago,” Elder Kintaro said, his eyebrows raised. “We had expected your journey to take many months to complete.”

  “I had not been in the mud dome a day when this man Drakis and his companions came to me.”

  Kintaro raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? You did not look for them then?”

  “I had intended to search for them as instructed,” Urulani corrected gently. “We had heard stories of their passing through the mud domes in the deep parts of the Vestasian Plain—indeed, it was impossible not to hear of it from the Hak’kaarin. But as it happened, they arrived at the same mud dome where I first began my search at nearly the same time I did.”

  “A miracle of the ancients!” Harku intoned, closing his eyes.

  “Perhaps,” Urulani said, again looking away toward the ceiling. “Or it may have been an accident. I cannot say.”

  “And so your journey is over before it has begun,” Elder Shasa intoned. “You have done well, Urulani. You are among our most trusted sisters of our clan. Will you then assist us? We wish to begin our investigations at once.”

  “Direct me, Elders,” Urulani replied.

  “We will find the heart of the tree by starting with the leaves,” Shasa said, pressing the fingers of his hands together and lightly touching his own lips. “Let us begin with his companions.”

  “Elders of the Sondau,” Urulani said, bowing low. “I present
to you Mala, an escaped slave from the House of Timuran in far Rhonas.”

  The man with the iron-colored gray hair leaned forward. “Mala . . . is that not a Merindau Clan name? Are you of the Merindau Clan?”

  Mala stood shivering in the torchlight.

  The gray-haired man glanced at Urulani. “Does she not understand our speech?”

  “She understands, Elder Kintaro . . . I cannot explain her silence as she would hardly keep her words to herself during our return journey today. Indeed, I had soon begun to dread our rest periods as she was always so full of words after we stopped.”

  Mala shot an angry glance at the woman.

  Urulani smiled in response. “Perhaps you might ask her again now, Elder Kintaro.

  “I am not of any clan,” Mala said at once then her eyes fell to gaze unfocused at the floor. “I was . . . I was born a slave and know of no clan but the Houses in which I served.”

  “But you are no longer a slave,” said the balding man seated between the other two, his voice calm and quiet. “You no longer serve any ‘House’ as you call it. How it is that you have come to be free?”

  “Free, Master?”

  Shasa smiled. “I am not your master, Mala. No man is your master any longer . . . do you understand?”

  Mala nodded her head but kept her eyes fixed on the floor. “Yes, Master.”

  Shasa shook his head.

  “What we want to know is how you came to no longer be a slave,” said the older man with a beard.

  “I do not remember it very well, sire,” Mala replied.

  “It is difficult,” Harku pressed on, “but you must tell us.”

  Mala’s lower lip began to quiver.

  “Tell us!” Harku commanded in a firm voice.

  Shasa’s face was full of warning for his brother, but Mala suddenly began to speak.

  “We were at House Devotions,” she said, her words coming out in a rush. “Everything was happening just as it always had before. Lord Timuran and his wife and daughter were near the House altar. I had already had my Devotions from the altar and was standing to one side of the subatria. Then Drakis—I don’t know what happened, but Drakis was yelling and fighting the House Guardians on the far side of the Aether Well. He didn’t want to take his Devotions. I couldn’t understand why . . . we had just spoken earlier in the day, and we had such great hopes . . . but there he was, fighting the Guardians, and . . .”