Dragon and Phoenix (82 page)

Authors: Joanne Bertin

BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix

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The mist hung over the
land like a blanket. The clank of armor and weapons came eerily through it, one moment clear, the next cut off as if by a giant hand closing over the sound. Soldiers moved among the corpses carpeting the ground, appearing and disappearing in the thick greyness, now and again turning a body over, disturbing the ravens at their feast. The midnight birds flapped off, slow and heavy, cawing their indignation to the grim sky.

The men ignored them. For the most part, they were silent as they went about their grim business; orders occasionally passed back and forth, the words falling like stones into the heavy air.

All at once there was a flurry of excitement. A young lieutenant called out, “Here, Kwahsiu! The message was right! They’re here!” He stood aside, stiff and proud, as his superior hurried to him. The foot soldiers crowded along behind as close as they dared, everyone following the grey shadow ahead of him.

Kwahsiu looked down. Nalorih stared back at him with sightless eyes, surrounded by soldiers that bore Lord Jhanun’s crest, unlike the others on the field. Yes, this was the party he’d been sent to find. Pray the Phoenix that he found the one he was looking for. The others didn’t matter, and he would grieve for his friend later.

“Search,” Kwahsiu snapped. The mist swirled around him.

The soldiers examined the bodies to no avail. They began ranging up and down the bank, cursing the thick fog as they stumbled along the uneven ground.

A thin, eerie wail cut through the air. A fearful babble answered it. “Quiet!” Kwahsiu roared, turning his head to locate the sound. It came again, distorted by the fog, but recognizable. Ah—ahead and to the left. “That’s no ghost, you fools—don’t you know a baby’s cry when you hear it?”

He hastened toward the water and followed the bank to a copse of trees looming out of the grey dimness. As if to urge him on, the baby cried again. Well ahead of his men, Kwahsiu climbed over fallen branches and trunks, eager to reach the infant hostage.

A thicket of brambles lay between him and his goal: a basket cradle on a
little beach of pebbles and sand, the body of woman sprawled before it. Barely glimpsed through the leaves, a gaping wound in her back told of how she’d come by her death; it was a miracle she’d been able to run so far with her precious burden. Kwahsiu found a moment to wonder where they’d found a cradle after they’d fled Rivasha; likely raided a farm, he thought.

The babe inside the cradle wailed its hunger and indignation at being alone. Kwahsiu chuckled; no more than his father or mother was Xu Ma Jhi used to deprivation. Pray the gods that the child would be more biddable than the female parent. Kwahsiu drew his sword and hacked a way through the brambles to the cradle.

He was preparing to cut the embroidered ribbons holding the child within the cradle when it happened. One moment the river beside him flowed swift and silent. The next, it erupted with a roar of fury. Kwahsiu screamed in terror for the first time in his life as a huge head adorned with feelers and streamers towered over him. The mouth gaped open, revealing long, sharp teeth like knives. Even as his paralyzed mind said “Dragon!” Kwahsiu was sent tumbling by a vicious sideswipe of the great head. Then, to his horror, the monster swooped down on the infant and seized the basket cradle in its mouth.

Like the cracking of a whip, the scaled nightmare reversed on itself and disappeared into the river. The last glimpse Kwahsiu had of the only thing that could keep the imperial troops from his lord’s walls, was the cradle between the dragon’s jaws, its head well above the water as it disappeared into the fog.

Between the pain of body and soul, Kwahsiu realized he had failed his lord. There was nothing left for him but to make reparation the only way he could.

He braced his sword in a tangle of tree roots and placed the tip against his heart.

“What is it you have, Miune?” said Zhantse.

Miune Kihn set his burden down gently on the grass, glad to be home once more at the head of the Black River. *
It is a youngling, a human youngling,*
he said.
*A soldier was going to kill it.*

Zhantse raised his eyebrows.

*He was, I tell thee!*
Miune insisted.
*He was standing over the cradle with his sword drawn.*

“I see,” Zhantse said. “Then I think you did well, Miune. There’s a madness among the Jehangli these days; I don’t doubt they would kill a babe. Let us see what you’ve brought me.” Picking up the waterdragon’s precious bundle, the shaman carried it to the fire over which a rabbit roasted on a spit.

Miune waddled awkwardly behind.
*When we know whether it is a boy or a girl, I would like to name it,*
he said.

“That seems only fair,” Zhantse agreed. “You did save its life.”

Setting the basket cradle down, Zhantse drew his knife and cut the embroidered
straps that held the baby in. He wrinkled his nose as it became evident that the baby’s swaddling clothes had not been changed in far too long.

*Faugh!*
the dragon said and sneezed.

“Agreed,” said Zhantse. Holding his breath, Zhantse undressed the baby. He examined the fine clothes briefly. Miune watched him and knew what he thought; some would call such things riches, but such were of no consequence in Nisayeh.

Still, they were his infant’s only birthright.
*Keep them,*
he urged.

Zhantse gave him a long look, but did as Miune asked. Still, he set the fouled brocaded silks to one side. Then, with the baby in the crook of his arm, he moved upwind of them. “We will ask Yesuin about them when he returns from tending the horses.”

The shaman laid the baby—a boy child—on the long grass, and fetched a bowl of water from the river and an old, soft cloth from his pack. Miune stood guard; though he had given up care of his youngling to Zhantse, he still felt protective toward the helpless little creature—protective and fascinated.

Zhantse returned and washed the baby. It squalled the entire time. “Healthy,” the shaman noted, wincing at a particularly outraged shriek. “Good lungs. But what’s this?”

He was, Miune saw, looking at the baby’s thigh.
*A burn?*
the dragon said.

“Yes. An old one, well healed. We need not worry about it. Now, my dragon friend, tell me why you brought this baby to me.”

Miune waved his feelers guiltily under the shaman’s stem gaze. Perhaps, just perhaps, Zhantse wouldn’t think his splendid plan to be quite as splendid as he did. The dragon tucked a feeler into his mouth and nibbled it.

Zhantse studied him for a long while. Then a smile creased the wrinkled face. “You brought me a new spirit drummer, didn’t you? To take Shima’s place.”

Relieved, Miune said,
*He is healthy and strong, and has no one else. I think he will make a good drummer for thee when he is older.*

“Oh, you do, do you?” the shaman said, but there was a laugh in the stern words.

*Yes. And his name will be Khivran after thy
—

“What do you have there, Zhantse?” a voice asked.

*Yesuin! Come see my youngling! I saved him from a soldier,*
Miune said.

The waterdragon watched as his new friend came up and peered over Zhantse’s shoulder.
*His name is
—*

“Xu!” Yesuin cried, his face suddenly pale. “Miune, Zhantse, that’s—that’s my younger son! See the burn? Shei-Luin told me … How did this—What has become of Shei and Xahnu?”

Yesuin staggered and would have fallen had not Zhantse reached up and steadied him. The shaman helped Yesuin kneel by his son’s side. Yesuin took
the child up in his arms; tears streamed down his face. “I never thought I’d see him,” the Zharmatian said softly.

*
Does this mean I may not name him?
* Miune asked Zhantse. Though moved by the sight of father and son, he was still annoyed at having to give up his youngling after all that trouble.

“Hush. You’ve done a good day’s work here,” Zhantse whispered as he jabbed Miune with an elbow. “And the child already has a name.”

*
I liked mine better.
* Miune grumbled, but only to himself.

Yesuin raised his head. “One day, Xu and I will seek his mother and brother. Until then, if you agree, Zhantse, I will raise him as a Tah’nehsieh.”

“I agree,” the shaman said. “You are both welcome here.”

At least his youngling wasn’t to be taken away from him completely. Mollified, Miune said, *
And when that day comes, I will go with both of thee, and we will have a great adventure.
*

Tor Books by Joanne Bertin

The Last Dragonlord
Dragon and Phoenix
Bard’s Oath
(FORTHCOMING)

About the Author

Joanne Bertin
lives in Connecticut and is currently working on
Bard’s Oath,
the third novel in the
Dragonlords
series, and attempting to put together a harp.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

DRAGON AND PHOENIX

Edited by James Frenkel

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eISBN 9781466820678

First eBook Edition : May 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bertin, Joanne.

Dragon and phoenix / Joanne Bertin.—1st ed.

p. cm.