The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (6 page)

The script of my own race remained meaningless to me, but I deciphered the inscriptions I found
on the troll monuments. I learned their names and the names of the gods they chiseled into the stone
they'd quarried. I saw how they'd panicked when they saw the Troll-Scorcher's army in the valleys
below them, abandoning their homes, leaving everything behind.

Stone bowls sat on stone tables, waiting for soup that would never be served.

Their benches were made from stone, their beds, too; I was awed by what I imagined as their
strength, their hardness. In time, I identified the tattered remnants of their blankets and mattresses in the
dust-catcher corners, but my awe was, by then, entrenched.

In truth, the trolls were a placid race until Rajaat raised his champions and the champions raised
their armies. Myron of Yoram taught the trolls to fear, to fight, and, finally, to hate the very thought of
humankind. Yet, it is also true that Deche and the trolls could have prospered together in the Kreegill, if
Rajaat had not interfered. Men did not quarry, and trolls did not farm. By the time I was born, though,
there was no mercy left in either race. It was too late for peace, too late for anything but annihilation.
Rajaat and the Troll-Scorcher had seen to that.

It was too late for Dorean. My beautiful bride remembered her life before Deche and could not
bear the mention of trolls. To her, the gray-skinned trolls were evil incarnate. As the sun rose each day,
she slipped outside the village and made a burnt-honey victory offering for the Troll-Scorcher. Her hatred
was understandable: she'd seen trolls and their carnage. I'd seen only their ruins. My thoughts about trolls
were whirling mysteries, even to me.

In Deche, boys became men on their sixteenth birthday. I could have taken Dorean into my
almost-finished house, but the elders asked us to wait until the next himali crop was in the ground.
Dorean and I were already lovers; the delay was no hardship to us. We would be wedded before our
child was born.

The day of my birth looms bright in my memory, but the day that looms largest was the Height of
Sun in my seventeenth year—the Year of Enemy's Vengeance, the day Dorean and I were to be wed. I
remember the bloody sun as it rose over the Kreegill ridge, the spicy aromas of the food the women
began to serve, the sounds of laughter, congratulations, and my cousin's pipes as I began the dance I had
practiced for years. With music and motion, I told the world that I would cherish Dorean, protect her,
and keep her safe from all harm.

I was still dancing when drumbeats began to echo off the mountains above us. For a handful of
heartbeats, the throbbing was part of my dance. Then my crippled uncle screamed, "Wardrums!" and
another veteran shouted, "Trolls!" as he bolted from the feast.

We had no time to flee or hide, scarcely enough time for panic. Trolls surged into Deche from
every quarter, their battle-axes swinging freely. As I remember now, with greater knowledge and the
hindsight of thirteen ages, I know there could not have been more than twenty trolls, not counting the
drummers hiding outside the village. But that morning, my eyes beheld hundreds of gray-skinned beasts
wearing polished armor and bearing bloody weapons.

Fear made me bold, reckless. I had no weapons and wouldn't have known what to do with a
sword, axe, or spear, if one had suddenly blossomed in my hands. In the midst of screaming confusion, I
charged the nearest troll with my naked fists and never saw the blow that laid me flat.

I've been spared the true history of that day, with all its horror and agony: not even Rajaat's
champions can hope— or dread—the memory of what happened while they lay unconscious. I choose
to believe that the village was dead before the butchery began, that all my kith and kin died swiftly, and
that Dorean died first of all. My mind knows that I deceive my heart, because my mind learned what the
trolls did when they defeated humanity: Their women drew our men's guts through slits in their bellies or
broke apart their ribs and seized their still-beating hearts. What their men did to our women, no matter
their age or beauty, would be best forgotten—

If I could forget.

Vengeance was mine, in the fullness of time; my conscience does not trouble me, but I am
grateful that I cannot remember Deche's desecration. Destiny had dealt me a glancing blow to the side of
my head, then destiny covered me in the refuse of what would have been my wedding feast and my
home. The trolls didn't spare me, they simply didn't find me.

The sun had set when I next opened my eyes. My head was on fire, but that wasn't what made
me blink. A half-congealed drop of blood struck my cheek as I lay there wondering how I'd survived,
wishing I hadn't. The eviscerated corpse of someone I had known, but no longer recognized, hung
directly above me. I was showered with gore and offal.

Trolls, I thought. They'd massacred Deche and stayed to celebrate their deeds in its ruins. I had
no notion how many trolls remained, nor any hope that my second attack against them would be more
successful than my first. I didn't much care either way. My fingers explored the ground beside me and
clutched a rock somewhat larger than my fist. Armed with it and numb courage, I gained my feet and
lunged for the nearest head.

She seemed twice my size in the firelight. Drunk or not, she heard me coming and swatted me
down. I was laid out on the damp ground, staring at the sky with a sore head, a busted lip, and tears
leaking out my eyes. A score of strangers laughed. When I tried to stand, someone planted a foot on my
chest.

He'd've been wiser to kick me senseless: I still had my rock and put it to good use.

The man went down, and I got up, trying to connect what I saw with what I remembered. I
remembered trolls, but the drunken sods were human. They'd been guzzling Deche wine, keeping warm
around a fire built from chairs, tables, and doors. Carnage was everywhere: hacked apart bodies, bodies
with their faces torn off. Bugs were already crawling, and the stench—

The sods didn't notice, or didn't care, but I'd never smelt violent death before. I gaped like an
erdlu hatchling and coughed up acid from my gut.

"You from around here, boy?"

I turned toward the voice—

And saw what the trolls had done to her, to my Dorean. Dead or alive, they'd torn away her
wedding gown and bound her to the post beside the village well. Her face was gone, her breasts, too;
she was clothed in blood and viscera. I recognized her by her long, black hair, the yellow flowers in it,
and the unborn child whose cord they'd tied around her neck.

A scream was born in my heart and died there. I couldn't move, not even to turn away or fall.

"What's your name, boy?" another sod demanded.

My mind was empty; I didn't know.

"Can't talk. Doesn't know his name. Must be the village loon."

"Hungry, loon?"

Another voice, maybe a new one, maybe not. I heard the words as if they came from a great
distance. A warm, moist clod struck my arm and landed in the dirt at my feet. My mind said stew-pot
meat, but my heart said something else. More clods came my way, more laughter, too. I began to shiver
uncontrollably.

"Clamp your maws!" a woman interrupted sharply.

Hard hands grasped my shoulders and spun me around. I lost my balance and leaned against the
woman—the best of a sorry lot of humanity—I'd attacked with the rock. She was shorter than I, but
numb and hopeless, I needed her strength.

"Dolts! Can't you guess? This was his village, his folk—"

"Why ain't he strung-out dead, like the rest of them?"

"He's the loon—"

"He ran off. Turned his yellow tail and ran."

I stiffened with rage, but the woman held me tight. Her eyes told me to be quiet.

"He got conked, that's what," she said, defending me.

Her hand brushed my hair. It was a gentle touch, but it awakened the pain both in my skull and in
my heart. I flinched away with a gasp.

"Clipped him hard. He's lucky he's not dead or blind."

Lucky—the very last word I would have chosen, but it broke the spell that had bound my voice.

"My name is Manu," I told them. "This place was called Deche. It was my home until the trolls
came this morning. Who are you? Why are you here? Why do you eat with the dead?"

I knew who they were by then. There was, truly, only one possibility: These were the soldiers of
the Troll-Scorcher's army. They'd pursued their enemy—my enemy—back to the Kreegills.

"Where are the trolls? Have you avenged our deaths?"

There were more hoots and wails of laughter until an otherwise silent yellow-haired man got to his
feet. The mockery died, but looking into this veteran's cold, hard eyes, I was not reassured.

"You ain't dead yet, farm boy, 'less you're tryin' to get yourself killed w' fancy words."

He had the air of leadership about him, just as my grandfather had had. The woman beside me
had gone soft with fear. His stare lashed me like a whip. I was expected to fear him, too. And I did. I'd
measured myself against the Troll-Scorcher's soldiers and knew myself to be less than the least of them in
every way save one: I was cleverer. I could see them for what they were. They scorned me, so I stood
tall. They mocked my speech, so I chose my words with extra care.

"I'll speak plainly: We farmers are told the-Troll-Scorcher's army swears an oath to uphold our
race and pursue each and every troll to an unhallowed grave. I see how you uphold the folk of Deche;
now show me the trolls in their unhallowed graves."

The yellow-haired man cocked his fist, but my clothes were stained with the blood of my kith and
kin. While I met his stare with one of my own, he didn't dare strike me.

"Where are the trolls?" I demanded. "Have they returned to the plains? Have they ravished
Corlane as they ravished Deche?" Corlane was another Kreegill village, somewhat higher in the valley.
"Have they vanished into the mountains above us? I know their old places. I can take you to them."

Behind my eyes I saw the folk of Corlane not as I had known them, but as my own people were:
mutilated, faceless, and bleeding. I felt nothing for them; I felt nothing at all, except the need for
vengeance.

"You can slaughter them as they slaughtered Deche."

"Slaughter!" the yellow-haired man snorted. "Us? Us slaughtering trolls? Risking our lives for the
likes of them... or you?"

There was a secret in his eyes. I saw that, and a challenge. He'd answer my questions if I had the
guts, the gall, to ask them, but he didn't think I'd survive the knowing. Perhaps, I wouldn't have if he
hadn't tempered me, then and there, in his contempt.

"Why are you here?" I demanded, returning to my earlier questions. "Why do you feast with the
dead as witnesses?

Why don't you hunt and slaughter the trolls who hunted and slaughtered us?"

The yellow-haired man smiled. His teeth were stained, and one was sharpened to a fang point.
"That's for the Troll-Scorcher, boy. He's the one, the only one, who slays trolls. We hunt 'em, boy, an'
hunt 'em an' hunt 'em, but that's all we do. He comes an' scorches 'em. We touch one gray wart an' we'd
be the ones getting cindered-up from the inside out. I seen it happen, boy. This"—he cocked his callused
thumb at poor Dorean—"this ain't nothing, boy, compared to scorching. Trolls could take you an' yours a
thousand times, an' it don't matter to me, so long as there's trolls for scorchin' when he comes."

I stood mute, strung between disgust and rage. The woman beside me squeezed my arm.

"It's the truth, boy," she said.

Swallowing my disgust, I let my rage speak, soft, slow, and cold. "Where is Myron of Yoram?" I
asked. "When does the Troll-Scorcher come?" I thought I knew the answer, but I needed to hear it.

Another smile from the yellow-haired man. "Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. We been
following these trolls since the start of High Sun." The grin soured. "He knows where we are, boy. He'll
come when it suits him, not before. Till then, we follow the trolls an' we follow 'em close, so no man
knows we're here."

"I'm a man," I said, "I know."

He drew a bone knife from his belt. "Trolls leave meat behind, not men."

I should have died. Everything I loved and cherished had already died. Their shades called me
through the darkness. I belonged with Deche, with my family, with my beloved. But my rage was
stronger and my thirst for vengeance against trolls, men, and Myron of Yoram couldn't be slaked by
death. A voice I scarcely recognized as my own stirred in my throat.

"A good-for-nothing farmer's boy? What can you do, boy—besides dig furrows in the dirt?"

"I'll keep him," the woman, still beside me, said before I could speak.

"Jikkana! Jikkana! You break my heart," another man cried out in mock grief. "He's a boy. He
won't last ten nights in your bed!"

She spun around. "My second-best knife says he lasts longer than you did!"

Her knife was never at risk.

A lavender glow had appeared above the painted mountains on the eastern wall of Hamanu's
cloister. The quiet of night gave way to the barked commands of the day-watch officers taking their posts
along the city's walls. Another Urik morning had begun. Setting his stylus aside, Urik's king massaged his
cramped fingers. Bold, black characters marched precisely across several sheets of pearly vellum.
Several more lay scrunched and scattered through the neglected garden. Two sheets remained
untouched.

"I'll need more vellum," Hamanu mused, "and more time."

The heat of day had come again to Urik. Here and there, insect swarms raised raucous chorus.
All other creatures, if they had the wit and freedom, sought shelter from the sun's brutal strength.
Throughout Hamanu's domain, the din of commerce faded, and labor's pace slowed to a snore. Mindless
mirage sprites danced across the burning pavement of the city's deserted market squares, while
merchants of every variety dozed in the oppressive shade of their stalls.

Beyond the city walls, in the green fields and villages, workers set aside tools and napped beside
their beasts. Farther away, in the gaping complex of mountain pits that was the Urikite obsidian mines,
overseers drank cool, fruited tea beneath leather awnings and the wretched mass of slaves received a
few hours' rest and unrestricted access to the water barrels.

No great mercy there, the king reminded himself as he, like the distant slaves, sipped water from
a wooden ladle in the shadows of the peasant cloister, deep within his palace. While he'd lived, Borys,
the Dragon of Tyr, had levied a thousand lives each year from each champion to maintain the spells
around Rajaat's prison. The obsidian mines required even more lives—too many more lives—to keep
Urik secure.

Letting slaves rest each afternoon insured that they'd live to hack at the black veins for a few
more days. The life span of a mine slave was rarely more than two seventy-five-day quinths of the
three-hundred-seventy-five-day Athasian year. An obsidian sword didn't last much longer, chipping and
flaking into uselessness. Maintaining the balance between able-bodied slaves and the baskets of
sharp-edged ore Urik's defense required was one task Hamanu refused to delegate to his templars. It
was his age-old decree that gave the wretches their daily rest and the threat of his intervention that kept
the templar overseers obediently under their awning.

It certainly wasn't mercy.

Mercy was standing here, concealing his presence from Pavek, who'd fallen asleep in the shade
of one of the dead fruit-trees. Waking the scar-faced man would have been as easy as breathing out, but
Hamanu resisted the temptation that was, truly, no temptation at all. He could experience a mortal's
abject terror anytime; the sweet-dreaming sleep of an exhausted man was precious and tare.

As soon as he'd returned to the city yesterday afternoon, Enver had sent a messenger to the
palace, begging a full day's recovery before he resumed his duties. Faithful Pavek, however, had visited
his Urik house only long enough to bathe and change his travel-stained clothes. He appeared at the
palace gates as the sun was setting and passed a good part of the moonlit night reading the vellum sheets
still spread across the worktable.

Naked tree stumps and neatly tied bales of twigs and straw testified to Pavek's diligent labor—at
least until exhaustion had claimed him. He sprawled across the fresh-cleared dirt, legs crooked and one
arm tucked under his cheek, as careless as a child. Images, not unlike the heat mirages above the market
squares, shimmered above Pavek's gently moving ribs, though unlike a true mirage, which any mortal
could observe, only Hamanu could see the wispy substance of the templar's dreams.

They were a simple man's dreams: the shapes of Pavek's loved ones as they lived within him.
There was a woman at his dream's shimmering center; Hamanu's human lips curved into an appreciative
smile. She was blond and beautiful and, having met her one momentous night in Quraite, the Lion of Urik
knew his ugly templar didn't embellish her features. Hamanu didn't know her name; there weren't enough
mortal names to label all the faces in thirteen ages of memory. He recalled her by the texture of her spirit
and through the uncompromising honesty of Pavek's dream.

The blond druid had fallen afoul of Hamanu's one-time favorite, Elabon Escrissar, during the
zarneeka crisis that had first brought Pavek to Hamanu's attention. Scars of abuse, disgrace, and torment
entwined beneath her loveliness. She'd healed somewhat in the years since Hamanu had last seen her, but
she'd heal more if she'd accept the love, as well as the friendship, his high templar offered her. She might,
in time; women often grew wise in the ways of mortal hearts, and she'd been raised by the archdruid,
Telhami, who was among the wisest of women.

Or, she might not. Bitter scars might offer more consistency and security than any man's love.

Regarding mortal frailty and apologies, Hamanu had seen almost everything in his life; very little
surprised anymore—or intrigued him. Enver's father, who'd lived two hundred fifty-six years, had begun
to see the world with immortal detachment shortly before he died. Pavek, though, was a young man, and
the woman he loved was younger still. Men and women lived longer and in greater variety than flowers,
but Hamanu had seen how fast they withered—especially when he embraced them.

He gestured subtly with an index finger. Pavek sighed, and the woman's dream images collapsed
into one another, then reformed. There was a boy above Pavek's shoulder, a sturdy black-haired boy
who smiled too easily to have been raised in a templar orphanage, as Pavek had been. In the quirky way
of memory, Hamanu remembered learning the boy's name, Zvain, in another part of this palace a little
more than two years ago. He recalled the name because it was uncommon in Urik and because the taste
of the boy's shame and misery had been as honey on his immortal tongue.

Zvain was another mortal who'd been scarred by Escrissar and by Telhami, too. He was an
orphan through no fault of his own and a survivor because when he'd needed a hand, the hand he'd
seized was Pavek's.

It was almost enough to make one of Rajaat's champions believe in justice and higher powers.

But for every Zvain who triumphed over his destiny, there were ten copper-hued Ruaris hovering
behind him. The youthful half-elf of Pavek's dream was handsome, proud... brittle, and oh-so-appetizing

to a jaded king who craved the passions of his subjects. Just as well that Pavek had left his unforgettably
vulnerable friend behind in Quraite. Even in another man's dream, Ruari's dark needs cried out, and
copper eyes flashed green as the distant spirit responded to a champion's hunger-Then vanished with a
yawn as Pavek levered himself up on his elbows.

"Great One!" the bleary-eyed templar muttered. Confusion reigned in his thoughts. He didn't
know if he should stand and bow or remain where he was with his face pressed against the dirt.

"I disturbed your dreams," Hamanu admitted.

Pavek's eyes widened; he made his decision. His head dropped like a stone, and he prostrated
himself in the dirt.

Which was a lie; honest men told lies to protect the truth.

Pavek didn't want to remember his dream, but Ruari's face floated on the surface of his thoughts
and would not sink— could not sink—until Hamanu released it, whereupon the burly human shivered
despite the oppressive heat.

"When I asked you to set my garden in order," Hamanu began mildly, "I expected you to
demonstrate your mastery of druid spellcraft. I didn't expect you to work yourself to exhaustion digging in
the dirt with hand tools."

Hamanu told a lie of his own to balance Pavek's. He knew there was no magic save his own in
Urik's palace and that his magic had doomed this cloister. He'd hoped, of course, that Pavek might
waken his guardian to infuse this barren soil with new vigor, but, in truth, Hamanu would have been
disappointed if Pavek had obeyed him with any force more potent than sweat or brawn.

"If you wanted an overnight forest, Great One, you should have summoned someone else." As
always, Pavek's stubborn honesty won out over the combined might of his fear and good sense.

"Another druid?" Hamanu asked; teasing mortals—tormenting them—was low treatment of those
with no means to oppose him, but it did stave off his more dire cravings. "Your friends, perhaps? Ruari?
That blond woman who means so much to you—as you mean so little to her? Tell me her name, Pavek;
I've forgotten."

"Akashia, Great One," Pavek admitted softly; a templar could not disobey his king's direct
command. The man's shoulders shook as he pushed himself to his knees. "She'd sooner die than serve
you, Great One, but even if you compelled her to come, she could do no more than what I've done.
Nothing will grow here. The soil has been scorched."

And what, a champion might ask, had brought that particular word to Pavek's mind? "Do I
compel you, Pavek?" Hamanu asked instead, less benignly than before.

"I don't know, Great One. To hear your voice, Great One——To feel you in my mind—" His
chin sagged again.

"Do you feel compelled? Did you feel compelled when Enver brought you a plain ink message
written on plainer vellum?"

"You know where Quraite is, Great One. They have no protection from your wrath, should you
choose to punish them. How could I refuse?"

Pavek spoke to the dirt. His eyes were closed. He expected to die in a thousand horrible ways,
but nothing would keep him from telling the truth as he understood it. And yet, irony of ironies, of all
those living under Athas's bloody sun, Pavek was among the very few who had nothing to fear from the
Lion-King. He didn't need to fear for his precious Quraite; Telhami had secured the enclave's perpetual
security long before Pavek's grandparents were born.

"I grant you the right to refuse to serve me, Pavek. Even now, I grant you that. Walk through that
door. Leave, and know in your heart that I will never follow you. The decision is yours," Hamanu said,
and within his illusion of human flesh and saffron-dyed linen, what remained of his own mortal heart beat
faster.

Hamanu inhaled his Unseen influence: his power to bend a man's thoughts according to his own
desire. The world grew quiet and dulled as his senses shrank to mortal dimensions. He truly didn't know
what Pavek would choose to do. When Telhami left, he'd had the fortitude to keep his word; others
hadn't been so lucky. Hamanu didn't know what he would do after Pavek made his choice. The stakes
were high, but even after thirteen ages of dominion over his city, the thought that one puny mortal might
deny him was acid goad between his ribs.

Pavek grasped a shovel's handle and used it to rise. "I've been a templar too long," he said as he
thrust the shovel into the ground. Leaving it upright in the dirt, Pavek touched a golden chain barely
visible beneath his shirt's neck. "Tell me to come, and I'll come. Tell me to leave, and I'll go. Ask me to
choose, and I'll stay where I am because I am what I am."

Hamanu exhaled and resumed command of the world around him. Through the golden medallion
hung on the golden chain Pavek wound between his fingers, Hamanu felt his templar's heart, the
vibrations of his thoughts. Honesty had again prevailed.

His eyes met Pavek's. Despite the fear, distrust, and habit that permeated the templar's being, he
didn't flinch. Perhaps that was all a champion could hope for: a man who could return his stare.

A stare would have to be sufficient for the moment. Pavek wasn't the only templar with a hold
over Hamanu's attention. Someone else had wrapped a hand around a medallion. With lightning
quickness, Hamaau identified the medallion's steel and gemstones and the confident hand that held it.

Commandant Javed.

A spark of recognition flowed through the netherworld to the war-bureau templar. When it
bridged the gap to Javed's medallion, the two were joined in Hamanu's thoughts. He'd sent Windreaver
off in search of the Shadow-King—the disembodied troll would learn things no mortal could—but he'd
sent his own champion to spy on the Shadow-King's army. He wasn't surprised that the commandant
was returning to Urik first.

Recount! he demanded, because it was easier to listen than to rummage blindly through chaotic
thoughts. Where is this host that the Shadow-King marches across our purview?

Gone to shadows, like their king, Great One, as soon as they saw our dust on the horizon,
Javed recounted. The women and their mercenaries fled rather than face us.

Hamanu scowled. For ages, he and Gallard, Bane of Gnomes, had skirmished on the barren
borders of their domains, tempering their troops and probing for a decisive advantage. Never before had
the Nibenese fled the field. He raked the surface of the elf's mind, gathering up images of an abandoned
camp: cooling hearths, empty trenches, empty kank pens.

But not one thing of value, Hamanu mused for his commandant's benefit. Not one overturned
cook pot or bale of forage. They'd planned that withdrawal from the beginning.

So it would seem, Great One—Javed agreed, but not before Hamanu plunged deeper into his
memories. I'm coming, Great One! The elf's thoughts exploded in the gray ether of the netherworld.

Urik's templars did not generally study the Unseen Path. Its secrets were rooted in powers that
Hamanu couldn't control as he controlled the elemental magic he released through the medallions. He
made exceptions for commandants and other high-ranking templars, whose thoughts might be subject to
scrutiny from Urik's enemies. As a mind-bender, Javed could not prevail against his king, but he could
sound an alarm, which Hamanu wisely heeded.

I'm coming, Great One, the commandant repeated, expanding his consciousness to include the
thundering kank that he, an elf of the wilderness, rode out of deference to his king—because the bug
could carry him faster than his own venerable legs.

The green haze of Urik's irrigated farmland hugged the forward horizon in Javed's sight.

Great One, grant me swift passage through Modekan, to the gates of Urik, and beyond.

Templars—even exalted commandants, like Javed, or gold-wearers, like Pavek—could use their
medallions to communicate directly with their king, but never with each other. If the commandant wanted
to avoid a confrontation with the civil-bureau templars who stood watch over the wheel-spoke roads into
Urik, much less if he wanted to ride a racing kank clear to the gates of Hamanu's palace itself, the Lion of
Urik would have to make the arrangements.