Dark Lord's Wedding (20 page)

“But they’re terror birds.” A woman gripped her torch in both hands. It was just a smoldering log. “They’re terror birds.”

Jerani should’ve known. The
Clack! Clack!
was from their beaks. He shouldn’t have left Celaise. A terror bird could be bending over her now, hooking out her insides.

“They’re not birds,” the King’s Spear said. He kicked two women. “Shut up! Will you just—”

“Terror birds. Can’t you hear?”

“Macco hears drums and sticks banging trees. No birds.” The King’s Spear pointed to the long feather draped over his chest. “The king might’ve only trusted Macco with you ant diggers, but he knows his terror birds. These are raiders.”

“There’s one.” Another warrior shook his axe at Jerani.

“That’s the jaguar man, you blood bag.” The King’s Spear grimaced at Jerani. “Can you fight?”

He asked that with Jerani holding a weapon in each hand. “What’re we fighting?”

“Raiders. Must be from the clan lands.”

That didn’t make sense. All these people were together in the Dominion. But then, the Great Hearts had needed to defend their cows from other tribes in the Empire.

“Hope there won’t be too many to fight,” one warrior said.

“There will be.” The King’s Spear kneaded his potbelly. “But Macco has a charm in him.”

The drum beat from the jungle darkness.
Boom! Boom! Boom!

From the trees stretched shadow men. Or men’s shadows. They carried spears and shields and nets. They were real people, and too many to fight.

“Shit!” The warrior lowered his axe. “We can’t—”

“Get into the grove,” Jerani said. “We can defend the grove.”

“You think?” The King’s Spear had backed behind the villagers.

“Yes.” Maybe. Jerani needed to go there to protect Celaise anyway. “Go.”

“Shield our backs then,” the King’s Spear said. He pulled up a woman by the hair and shoved her toward the grove.

They left Jerani. How was he supposed to stop all those warriors? He couldn’t, not with fighting. He had to scare them.

A villager had dropped a torch. Jerani picked it up and held it with his spear. What was he doing? Now they would only be able to see him better to aim.

“What’s that?” One of the enemies pointed to Jerani. Feathers splayed out on shoulder guards. He took a step back.

Jerani charged at all of them. He howled. He roared like a lion. Like a jaguar too, if they even roared. That’s what these men saw him as, jaguar skinned.

“Obsidian Jaguar!” Jerani screamed and threw his war club.

An enemy dropped.

“Jaguar! Jaguar!” What was Jerani even saying? Any of them could spear him, and then he would be dumb and dead and Celaise would have no one.

The enemies scrambled away, bumping into each other. Two fell over. The rest raised their weapons against Jerani. They didn’t run.

That meant he would have to. He tossed his torch into their faces and sprinted. Between the trees and through the darkness and to the grove.

The King’s Spear was pushing the last of the villagers past the banyans. “You,” he said to Jerani, “go in with the others. Keep the raiders from climbing in.”

Jerani scrambled past.

“Macco the King’s Spear will have to hold the way.” He angled the point of his weapon and its poison at the root gateway. “All by himself.”

Inside, children wept. The fox twittered and leaped. A warrior hefted crystal slabs and passed them up to the women in the trees. “Hurl ’em down at anything, bird or man.”

Celaise was still in their tent, and that’s what mattered. Jerani just had to keep her safe until midnight.

He sprang from branch to branch. Torchlights flickered behind in the grove. He couldn’t see anything in front, just a stirring in the darkness. Just a snick, a scrape from men creeping up the banyans.

His spear caught them. His spear found them. His spear saw them as if it had eyes all its own. It pulled him from banyan to banyan. Jerani could barely keep up. Who knew how many enemies there were, but Jerani and his spear were always there.

Then his spear broke. Again. He held the splintered shaft. A shield must’ve shattered it. Or a warrior had dragged it down with him and cracked it against a branch. Jerani had slid back into the grove, he remembered doing that. He was leaning against a tree, gasping. He couldn’t catch his breath. The air was too thick and too wet. His lungs stung like they were full of glass shrub.

He had no weapons.

The King’s Spear was shouting. He stumbled into view, falling into the lotus pond. He screamed, cradling his arm against his chest. “That crystal witch! Her charm didn’t work. Where is the whore?”

He clutched his spear with his left hand. His other arm bent in a wrong place. Bludgeoned and broken.

Jerani shook himself to his feet. “Give me your spear.”

“What? It’s mine. Macco is the King’s Spear. Where’s that witch, Resha?”

The crystal plates were still dark. Jerani shook his head. “Not up yet.”

“Burning shit! Where is she?” The King’s Spear kicked at the tent. He stared down at Celaise. Or maybe the big jewel. “By They of Jade Skin, what’s that?”

“Celaise!” Jerani knelt by her. She should be up by now, but her eyes still hadn’t opened. Maybe they couldn’t. “Celaise! We need you. There are warriors, they—”

“Come out,” a voice called from outside the grove. “Come out, or we burn you out.”

“They won’t,” the King’s Spear said. “They need us alive for the knives. They’ll send us to the capitol so they won’t have to send their own.”

“Not going to the sun city.” The axe warrior had blood all over his body. He dragged his weapon with shaking arms. “They’ll pull out my heart for the dragon.”

The priest rose from the villagers with his rain stick. “It’s an honor to feed the sun—”

“Shut it!” The King’s Spear kicked him. “They’re not taking you, and you know it.”

These men were as scared of being sacrificed as Jerani. And this was their home.

“Come out.” The enemies outside banged their drums.

“They won’t burn us,” the King’s Spear said.

The smell of smoke scratched at Jerani’s nose.

“They can’t burn us,” the King’s Spear said. “It’ll take days to fire these trees.”

Chopping sounds rang out through the forest. The enemies were collecting wood. What could Jerani do? He knelt over Celaise. The fox hopped to them. His whiskers twitched as he snuffed Celaise’s ear.

Jerani lifted the fox. He rubbed his fur, got it good and bloody. Uh oh, the lady wouldn’t like that.

The fox jabbered up at him. The jewels in his collar flashed purple.

Jerani dropped him. All the piled gemstones lit the grove with a burst of violet.

“They’re burning us.” A woman shielded her eyes.

“What’s happening?” The warrior dropped his axe. His eyes were full of purple light. “What’s this?”

Jerani swayed to his feet. “Midnight.”

The lady dove from the sky. She plummeted. She careened to the ground.

She touched down. Her landing made no sound, except the tearing of fabric from her robe flying apart. Her gloves peeled off, and her jewels glared.

“Lady,” Jerani said, “the raiders, we tried to—”

“Everyone, down.” The lady lifted her hands, and the crystals soared.

The slabs of gemstone whirled above her like a flock of mad flamingos. The world seemed to spin in the opposite direction. The sparkling weight of the magic pinned Jerani to the ground.

The villagers had flung themselves down. The axe warrior covered his face with his hands. Even the King’s Spear took a knee. He gaped up at the storm of gems. His gaze flicked toward the lady, and his face twisted with what might’ve been greed. Jerani elbow-walked past him to the tent to hold Celaise.

The lady pointed, and gemstones flew together and stuck. Their spearhead sides locked edge to edge. They stacked into two pillars. She could build a house of purple crystal. They had enough gemstones to seal off the grove. Weapons would break against the walls. Their crystal house wouldn’t burn.

The lady built higher. Gemstones hulked up into the canopy. Jerani could only wonder what she was making. The pillars might’ve been tree trunks. Their sharp roots dug into the ground.

Crystal pebbles fit between glistening plates. The larger gems slid over each other. The towers of gemstone was moving. Was it falling? Jerani grasped Celaise’s shoulders, pulling her away. Branches snapped. Banyans creaked. Leaves rained down.

The pillars bent. They were the legs of a crystal giant. They lifted. Those weren’t roots but claws. The gem-scaled monster turned. A mouth of amethyst spikes opened. It was a crocodile. No, a crystal dragon.

A cavern of fangs opened to roar. No sound came out, but its silence blasted down on Jerani. The gaze of its tiny glint eye smashed him flat. His chest would break. His insides would squeeze out. The dragon’s scales reflected faces stretched in awe and terror.

The dragon dragged itself through the banyans. Tree limbs snapped. Leaves rained down. It didn’t have any back legs or tail. Unfinished, its insides were hollow. That didn’t seem to slow the dragon down. It gave chase with a clattering rush. The lady leapt after it. She and the dragon left the grove. Then the screams began.

She must’ve let the raiders run. Their cries faded into the misty distance.

When Jerani picked himself up and crept out, he didn’t find many bodies. Bark had been scraped from trees. The dragon must’ve slithered between. It returned to loom in glittering star shine. The lady fluttered around the dragon. She traced a hand over its scales.

“Give Macco the dragon,” the King’s Spear said. He wheezed, still cradling his broken arm. “You’ll be rewarded.”

“A dragon is its own reward,” the lady said.

“You owe Macco, woman.”

“Do not presume on me further. Tonight I dreamed of trauma and woke to unrest.”

Jerani thought the King’s Spear would back off. He must see. The lady was above him. She didn’t even look down. She was gazing at a line of scales fitting into the hindquarters of her dragon.

Macco got all the louder. “The King’s Spear chooses, not you.”

He reached toward her. Macco dared to grab at her ankle. The bottom of her foot shone with four rings of gem lights, one nested within another.

She flipped away from his touch and faced Macco. Her dragon’s crystal-crest head also glared down at him.

Jerani backed away between two trees.

Macco lifted his broken arm. “The charm didn’t work.”

“Are you accusing me of not keeping a promise?” She touched his spear on its green band. It tore out of his hand, and she flung it over her shoulder.

He bellowed and ran after it.

The spear turned about midair and skewered him. The lady said, “No warrior shall kill you.”

He opened his mouth, and dark foam came out. He tugged at the spear as if he could pull it free of his chest. As if he could live.

He was snapped up into the air by glowing fangs. The crystal dragon swung its head from side to side. Parts of the man were flung off into the treetops.

“And you shall be above all other warriors,” the lady said. She turned to Jerani.

His heart dropped into his feet. Had he offended her somehow? Had the fox been hurt in the battle?

“Help the people back to their homes,” she said. “I must carve the last of the amethyst.”

An elephant of weight lifted from Jerani’s shoulders. He ran, bolted into the grove. The lady wasn’t mad at him, and she had cured Celaise. And now they had a dragon. The lady said something behind him. Her voice was hard.

“The time for hiding is over.”

PART

II

“
Those with power can never be free.”

“
If you think power is a burden, try being powerless.”

“
Oh I do, my heart. Every day under the sun.”

“
And I, from midday to midnight.”