Song of the Dragon Read online

He suddenly thought of Mala—his beautiful Mala working in the foundations of the magnificent palace of Sha-Timuran. Her image floated before him in his mind; she reached up with her hand to wipe the sweat from her clean-shaven head before she returned to scrubbing the path stones beneath the graceful towers of their master’s citadel that floated above the garden. He could almost catch the glint of her emerald eyes, feel the curve of her cheek in his hand. He had to return to her—for her and with the honor that they both so desperately needed. She was unaware of the danger he was in—that his life could end at any moment—and the thought of her not knowing comforted him.

  He could almost hear her humming to herself as she worked in the garden . . .

  Nine notes . . . Seven notes . . .

  The dwarves have no doors . . . The dwarves are no more . . .

  Braun was smiling at him. “So you do know something honest after all! Tell me!”

  Drakis gripped his sword, pulling it from the scabbard.

  Braun anticipated the move. The Proxi’s staff lashed out suddenly, gripped with both his hands. The shaft caught Drakis just behind the knees, cleanly sweeping both his feet out from under him. The warrior landed heavily on his back, the breath knocked from his chest. As he sucked in a painful gasp, the light from the headpiece carved a brilliant, blurred arc over him, and he felt the cold steel point of the staff against his throat. He fought for air, trying to speak, but the sound would not come.

  Braun leaned down, his head and shoulders silhouetted against the light from the Aether crystal on his staff.

  “We’re empty rooms, Drakis, all of us,” Braun said in short breaths. “Nothing but the form of what our masters have molded us to be. But I’ve seen the reality of who and what we are. The walls have cracks, and the light shines through. The cords that bind us unravel, and we see at last that our rooms are not empty but filled with ghosts, Drakis—ghosts and demons more terrible and wonderful than we know.”

  Drakis reached up with both hands, gripping the staff at his throat. “Braun! Stop!”

  “I can’t stop now,” Braun answered, shaking his head with an unnatural smile. “You’ve got to see the ghosts! They’re waiting for us both—calling to us—longing to take us to a better destiny.”

  Braun looked up. The roof of the avenue was a great arched ceiling barely visible beyond the light from the staff.

  “The ghosts come in the darkness,” Braun giggled. “Some things are seen better in the dark . . . some things are easier in the dark . . .”

  The glow from the staff began to fade. The impenetrable darkness slowly closed in on them again as the light shrank.

  “Soon your soul will be open at last,” Braun nodded, the features of his face vanishing into a vague shape as the light receded. “The ghosts will spill from you and you will see the vision.”

  Darkness enveloped them.

  “You will hear the song!”

  Stars appeared.

  Impossibly, above him in the pitch blackness two-thirds of a league below the mountain, the night sky filled his vision.

  Nine notes . . .

  Come to us and bring our redemption . . .

  The stars shifted as he watched in slack-jawed wonder.

  Seven notes . . .

  Weep for the pain and the loss . . .

  He felt as though he were falling up toward them.

  Five notes . . .

  The past is our sorrow . . . The past is our shame . . .

  Faces started forming among the stars. Faces he had forgotten. Faces he once knew.

  Ghosts.

  Drakis screamed.

  “Drakis! Are you injured?”

  Drakis opened his eyes to see the faces of his Octian, lit by a single globe-torch, staring down at him.

  The human warrior sat up on the stones of the avenue and drew in a painful breath. “No, Captain ChuKang. I can fight.”

  The manticore stood up, pulling Drakis to his feet as he did. “We thought we had lost you, hoo-mani. There was a reserve of dwarven warriors waiting here when we came through the fold. I think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them.”

  KriChan chuckled darkly. “They ran, but not fast enough.”

  “It was a blessing from the gods,” ChuKang continued. “Chasing them down showed us the way to the causeway.”

  “At least we thought it was a blessing,” Megri chimed in. The goblin was grinning as he picked at his fingernails with the point of his dagger, “until we realized the Proxi had gone missing.”

  Drakis turned. Braun stood nearby, still smiling at him with the same strange grin.

  “The Centurai is assembled up ahead,” KriChan said. “Are you ready to go?”

  Drakis shuddered.

  “More than ready.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Firefall

  THE TIMURAN CENTURAI had lost nearly a third of their number by the time they emerged from the dwarven avenue. Regrouped and organized, their well-ordered phalanx emerged shoulder to shoulder onto a courtyard that was completely engulfed in hot, steaming mists.

  Their carefully ordered and classic formation suited the plans of the Ninth Throne Death-dealer Dwarves well—who waited for the Centurai to emerge from the avenue and then set upon them from both sides simultaneously. Hot, wet mists swirled in utter blackness around them, illuminated by the frequent, diffused flashes of blue and red in the distance, each flash painting silhouettes of slaughter in the mists. In the confusion of the vapor, the carefully ordered Centurai collapsus again into frantic and desperate fights with an enemy who kept appearing out of nowhere and vanishing just as quickly as they came.

  Drakis adjusted his grip and pushed his way into the battle once again. He needed to bring order to his Octian. If he could rally them, then he might use them to bring order to other Octia in the Centurai, but that couldn’t happen until he could find his own brother warriors. He was blind in the thick vapors around him.

  He waded into the milky conflict, killing before being killed and struggling to keep his footing on the blood-slick stones.

  “There is a place that calls my soul home.” Unbidden, Drakis’ lips began to move with each blow of his sword, and through his chattering teeth he began hesitantly to sing. “North far beyond horizons . . .”

  He cut his sword deep across the gut of the dwarf before him.

  “To my place of resting . . . of testing . . .”

  He drew the blade out just in time to parry an ax blade from his right.

  “Centurai! Centurai Timuran!” The call to rally was shouted unmistakably by ChuKang—yet his words sounded strangely muffled, their direction and distance diffused through the steaming fog. One after the other, the leaders of each Octian were being summoned to rally to their leader. “Centurai!”

  Drakis thrust his sword into an ax-wielding dwarf, then, looking up, caught a glimpse of several large figures running past him, their dark outlines illuminated by flashing pulses of light against the steaming mists. The first two were manticores—judging by their size and the enormously broad shoulders—followed closely by a lithe shadow with four arms.

  “Hey, GriChag! TsuRag! Ethis!” Drakis called out as he dragged his blade quickly from the quivering body of his last opponent. His own Octian at last. So long as he had his Octian brothers with him, he was invincible. His eyes remained locked on the shadows as they quickly stopped and turned in the sticky fog.

  “Yes, Warlord?” Ethis said flatly as he came closer.

  Warlord was the title reserved for the master of the combined Legions and ludicrously beyond what any human could dream to attain. Drakis frowned. “Knock it off, Ethis. GriChag, where’s Megri?”

  “With ChuKang and KriChan,” the manticore said quickly. “And Braun?” Drakis urged.

  “Yes, he’s with them, too.” GriChag turned his massive head away in disgust.

  Drakis gave a sudden, violent shake. The steaming fog was unnerving him. “Then let’s form the Octian on ChuKang. You show
us the way, GriChag.”

  The manticore curled his lip, barring his fangs, but he turned and obeyed, followed by TsuRag and Ethis. Drakis’ own feet stumbled on the uneven ground, but he knew that both the manticores and the chimerian could see far better than he could in these conditions. Better to keep his gaze fixed on them and risk a few missteps than to risk falling down some bottomless shaft.

  With a startling abruptness, the mists twisted, writhing in the cavern wind, shredding apart. He could see the Yungskord again, but this time Drakis was looking back to the distant promenade that the Timuran Centurai had folded away from not that long before. He had stood there and seen this place in the distance; now, thanks to the folds, he was standing here and looking back on where they had so recently been and where Braun had propagated so many copies of the gate symbol along that wide promenade. The young warrior took in a breath, for the sudden vista filled him with awe and pride; those quickly set gate symbols had borne fruit.

  Drakis stood atop a cliff face looking down onto a battle the likes of which he had never before witnessed. It raged all across the floor of the enormous Yungskord cavern. A tide of Imperial Warriors—three full Impress Legions, he was sure, over sixteen thousand strong—charged from a line of folds all along the promenade and down toward the carefully prepared positions. Imperial catapults, hastily arrayed on the promenade, launched supporting balls of flame over their heads. The dwarves waited for them, dug into a series of trenches crossing the craggy ground between the raging cascades of water that were still flooding into the enormous grotto. Long torrents of magma streamed down from the ceiling of the cavern; their brilliant yellow-orange ribbons fell crashing into the flooded cavern floor and flashing into scalding steam, boiling both the water and the Impress Warriors around it. Still, the slave-army of the elves pressed their attack, led by ranks of enraged manticores, their fangs bared in their feral faces, their roars sounding before them as they charged across the field of battle. Following on their heels were chimeras and an entire Cohort of Proxi—nearly five hundred strong—in support. They were casting sheets of electrical fire over the heads of the charging manticores and into the trenches of the dwarves. Their effectiveness was lessened, however, as the Proxi, too, had to run forward or risk death literally pouring down on them from above. Their flashes of lightning and the magma cascades illuminated ghastly scene as the manticores were suffering under the withering assault of catapult fire raining death across their ranks. The great lion-men never took their eyes off their prey, however, and in a wave leaped over the battlements and into the first line of dwarven trench works.

  “Drakis!” ChuKang snarled through the flat muzzle of his face.

  Drakis turned at once, unquestioningly obeying his leader’s command. “Captain! I do not yet have the count . . .”

  “Forget that! There’s no time,” ChuKang said, pointing up along the cliff face. “Get this Octian organized and moving . . . now!”

  It was the causeway; the same causeway he had seen from the far end of the Yungskord, but now it lay open before them, rising along the side of the cavern, winding between the spires of impossibly large stalagmites straight to the gates of the Thorgreld—and Stoneheart just beyond.

  “You heard the voice! TsuRag and GriChag—you’re the leads with swords bright!—Megri, you follow ChuKang and KriChan. Braun, you’re with me. Ethis—you watch our backs. Stay tight. Let’s go!”

  ChuKang was already charging up the inclined ledge, and Drakis was finding it hard to catch up. Now in the clear, Drakis could see what remained of their Centurai emerging from the steam. They were far fewer than he had hoped, perhaps not quite forty—less than half their original strength. With the song still sounding in the back of his head, Drakis yelled, and his entire Octian yelled with him as they led in the charge.

  They ran up the fitted cobblestones of the causeway as it wound its way upward following the side wall of the cavern. Their path was illuminated by their globe-torches and the increasingly frequent brilliant flashes from the battle on the cavern floor behind them. Every step up the inclined road brought them closer to the Last Gate of Thorgreld—a bastion carved into an enormous stalactite hanging from the cavern ceiling nearly a thousand feet above the cavern floor. Beyond that, in the dim light of the battle raging below them, Drakis could see the Stoneheart—last stronghold of the dwarven kings.

  The blessings of the Emperor may yet be with us today, Drakis thought. He could see the Last Gate ahead of them as they charged up the causeway, and the way still looked open. There were no dwarven warriors on the road between them and the gatehouse. Out of over forty thousand warriors, the fates had conspired to place what remained of Centurai Timuran within reach of the greatest prize of the war.

  “Hey, hoo-mani,” huffed the goblin as he sprinted alongside Drakis. “What is this treasure we’ve come to liberate?”

  “It’s the most important treasure of this entire war, Megri, but you’re going to have a hard time finding it if you don’t know what it is,” Drakis grinned. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

  “Yeah, dwarf barter—I forgot.”

  “Can someone please tell Megri why we’re here?” Drakis called back, not slackening his pace.

  Ethis spoke up at once. “Destroy the last of the dwarven thrones . . . capture the Crown of the Ninth Throne . . . and return with it and any other bounty we liberate in triumph to Lord Timuran.”

  “That’s right,” Drakis called back, his voice starting to get hoarse from long use during the day. “We get to return with great honor and glory added to the House of Lord Timuran.”

  “Maybe even a reward, eh?” Ethis chuckled. Drakis had long ago learned to listen carefully to chimera. Looking at them was useless in trying to gauge their intentions since chimera barely had a face, let alone facial expressions.

  “Sure, Ethis,” KriChan, the captain’s manticorian second, responded. “Se’Shei Timuran himself will give you a big kiss, pat you on the head, and elevate you to Sixth Estate just so you can join him for breakfast.”

  “More likely eat him for breakfast!” Braun laughed. “But you shouldn’t worry, friends, because we’ll never have to worry about another breakfast ever again!”

  Drakis eyed Braun as they ran side by side. He had known Braun all his life, but he had never acted so strangely before.

  “Thick-bones—thick-head,” Ethis, snorted as he laughed. “You know the saying? Hoo-mani are poor at everything—great at nothing.”

  Both the chimerian and the goblin laughed heartily.

  “Quiet, both of you!” ChuKang growled.

  Drakis grimaced. Chimera approached battle with a lot more finesse than the manticores. They weren’t particularly strong, but they were fast and difficult to damage; their skeletons were telescoping plates and cartilage instead of the more rigid and brittle bones of the manticores or humans. They could change their skin color to blend into their surroundings and alter their skeletal frame at will so that they might be nearly as compact as a dwarf to nearly twice as tall as Drakis. Chimera made fine warriors but tended to be clannish and exclude others. He didn’t have anything against the chimera and always remembered them as maybe a little playful but never cruel to him. But now Ethis was making racial jokes?

  “We’re coming to the end and the beginning all at once,” Braun huffed next to Drakis. “The whole pointless bloodletting and death dealing—all for the amusement of the elven children! We should stop . . . savor the moment . . .”

  “We’re almost there,” Drakis snapped. “We can’t stop now.”

  “You cannot run from yourself, Drakis,” Braun shook while he ran. His craggy face was sweating profusely. “The ghosts are lurking, waiting to pounce on you given any opportunity. They’ll leap from their little box and bite old Timuran right in his skinny ass!”

  “Shut up, Braun! The Tribune will get the wrong idea . . .”

  “Do you think so? I thought I was speaking very clearly!”

  “Jus
t keep your mouth shut and we may salvage a way out of this yet. If we get hold of that last Dwarven Crown, the glory to House Timuran will be . . .”

  “I don’t give a damn about the House glory!” Braun spat back. “It’s not my glory—it’s not your glory--so why should we care . . . let alone die?”

  “You know why as well as anyone!” Drakis shook his head. They had fought their way so far, lost more than forty brothers from their own Centurai in the last hour, and now their Proxi wanted to just walk away from the reward? What in the name of the gods was wrong with everyone today?

  Nine notes . . . Seven notes . . .

  The last dwarven king . . . My death-knell did bring . . .

  Five notes . . . Five notes . . .

  “Well, it looks like none of us are going to have to worry about the spoils today,” Ethis grumbled. “Look up ahead.”

  They were rounding a towering stalagmite when they saw it. More than a hundred yards beyond TsuRag and GriChag, three full Cohorts had erupted from folds appearing on the causeway in front of them. More than a thousand Impress Warriors were now dashing madly toward the Last Gate ahead of them.

  “Where did they come from?” Drakis asked sourly.

  “What difference does it make,” Braun sighed, “so long as they’re the ones doing the bleeding?”

  “Damn you, Braun!” KriChan’s golden eyes flashed in the darkness. “If you weren’t our Proxi, I’d tear out your heart right here and now!”

  Drakis turned toward ChuKang. “Come on! We’ve come this far—we can still beat them to the throne!”

  “Wait! Something’s not right,” ChuKang snarled.

  The human stepped in front of their manticorian captain and angrily turned. “ChuKang! The lead Cohorts will break against the gate tower. Let them do the dying and then we . . .”

  ChuKang was not looking at Drakis; the manticore’s gold-hued eyes were fixed on something at the top of the causeway.

  Drakis could feel the heat growing on his neck. He turned and drew in a sharp breath.

  The front Cohorts had engaged the Thorgreld Gate; an upside-down tower suspended from the cavern ceiling down to meet the rising causeway, but the dwarves once more were anticipating them. A cascade of molten lava, held in check for uncounted centuries against this day, was loosed by the dwarven defenders from above the gate. Its brilliant, blinding stream arced out from the inverted tower’s spouts and poured down on the ledge below. Flashes of blue could be seen near its base—evidence of the desperate attempts of the Tribunes to hold back the incinerating river of liquid rock through their Proxis while keeping the lead Centurai still battling for the gate and the throne beyond.