The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King (9 page)

As the first red streaks of daylight thrust over the eastern horizon, I gazed at my night's work: the
fire I had extinguished, the troll I'd killed. He was young, probably no older than I—which made him very
young for a troll. The warty calluses that armored adults of his race had scarcely spread up his arms. His
face was smooth, with soft brown eyes, wide-open and staring at me. His open mouth asked why?

I had no answer. We were far from Deche; there was no cause for me to think I'd claimed
vengeance against a troll who'd wronged me personally. Like as not, the troll I'd killed—the troll who
would have killed me, I made no mistake there—had his own wounded memories and fought humans for
the same reasons I fought trolls.

Neither of us was right, but I was alive. Nothing else mattered. I'd survived the massacre at
Deche, and I'd survived a face-to-face combat with a troll. Destiny had plans for me. I believed that as
strongly as the sun rose, but I had no hint of what lay before me.

Trolls were sun-worshipers. Every house I'd explored above Deche had an east-facing door with
a rayed disk and an inscription chiseled into the stone lintel above it. I'd determined that before the
Troll-Scorcher had come to the Kreegills, trolls had set the skulls of their ancestors atop their homes
where the sun would strike them first and fill their hollow eyes with light.

My troll had fallen wrong-way round. Dawn struck his feet while his eyes were still in shadow. It
was no desecration—not compared to what the trolls had done in Deche and elsewhere—merely an
accident as he fell and died. But I had to prove myself better than the trolls, to justify what I'd done. I
wrapped my belt around his ankles and hauled him around so the rays fell on his still-open eyes. In ashes

Then, when the sun was well risen, I took my knife and hacked off his head.

Bult and the others had begun to rouse from their stupor by the time I returned to our camp with
my trophy, banging bloodily into my knee. Looking back, I now recognize another gesture from destiny's
hand, guiding me into a situation I ought not to have survived. I was young—that accounts for most
foolishness among men of all races; I suppose it accounts for mine that morning.

Throwing the troll's head at Bult's feet, I shouted, "I saved your worthless lives last night," and, in
the inexplicable reasoning of youth, I expected him to thank me. More than that, I expected him to
recognize that I was the better man and admit as much before the whole band.

Foolishness. Unmitigated foolishness... and destiny.

Bult had a sword, the only sword in our band. It had a composite blade: bits of broken obsidian
wedged into a stave of waterlogged wood that had then been baked hard in a kiln and strengthened with
a copper spine. It was useless against a troll, but Bult figured to make short work of me when he drew it
out of a bulky scabbard.

"Knew you was trouble from the start," he said, kicking my trophy aside as he advanced on me.
"Should've killed you then and there—you with your fancy farm-boy words and your ideas."

I retreated a pace and tested my grip, finger by finger, against the rawhide braid wrapped around
my club. With a dead troll fresh in my memory, I was cautious, but not overawed by my adversary or his
weapon. My club needed a bit more room than Bult's sword; I shook out my shoulder and retreated,
cocking my arm for my first swing. Bult smiled and nodded.

I thought our brawl was about to begin, but I hadn't been paying attention to my back. Hands I
hadn't suspected seized my wrist and elbow. They wrenched my weapon from my hand, clouted me on
the flank, and thrust me forward to my doom.

I landed hard on my hands and knees, well in range of Bult's leather-shod foot. He kicked me
solidly under the chin, and I went head over heels in the dust, to the great amusement of my fellows, who
had more enthusiasm for the murder of one of their own than they'd shown for a true enemy's death.

"You think you're smarter than me, Manu," Bult told me as he raised his foot to kick me again. I
scrabbled backward into an unfriendly wall of legs and feet that ended my retreat. "That's been your
mistake all along. You think 'cause your mamma and papa taught you to talk pretty, you're cut from a
better piece of cloth. Well, your mamma and papa aren't nothing but troll-meat, Manu, just like you're
gonna be when they find you."

Bult meant to hamstring me and leave me for the trolls— that was clear from the gleam in his eyes
and the angle his wrist made with the sword's blade when he raised his arm. He could have had his will
with me; I was weak with fear and sick with defeat. Sour blood filled my mouth. There was no strength
left in me to move my legs out of harm's way, if he'd taken his cut right then. But Bult lugged his stroke
and gut-kicked me instead.

Today I am the Lion of Urik, invulnerable and invincible. In the form Rajaat has given me, the
finest steel cannot harm me. With an exercise of whim, I can hide my shape beneath an illusion of any
creature I imagine. But when I was a mortal man, there was nothing about me that warranted Bult's
respect. I took after my mother's folk: light-boned and slender. From my earliest days I'd learned the
tricks of balance and leverage because I never had my father's and brothers' strength. I could carry
Jikkana because I knew where to lift; I could fell a troll because I knew where to balance, where to
pivot, how to coil my entire body and release its power in a serpent's strike.

Knowledge was my weapon, I told myself as I lay there in the dust, blood and bile streaming
from my face. I was smarter than Bult; I was better, but first I had to breathe and protect myself from the
kicks that came from all directions. Ignoring pain and blurred vision, relying on
instinct—knowledge—alone, I caught a foot as it struck my ribs. I twisted it one way as I rolled the
other. Finally there was a groan that didn't come from my throat, and a few heartbeats for me to rise up
on my hands and knees.

I choked when I tried to breathe and spat out a tooth or two. My hair dragged in the muck my
blood had made of the dust, but my lungs were working again, and my thoughts were clearer. I heard
Bult sidestepping, taking aim at my flank. Raising my head, I caught his eye.

I nailed Bult, midstride. He backed off, and his mouth worked silently a moment before he said:
"Get up, farm boy. Get up on your feet, if you dare, or crawl away as you are."

We'd heard that trolls could track by scent, that their noses were as good as their night eyes. The
way I was bleeding on the ground and clutching my side, Bult guessed I'd be troll-meat whether he
hamstrung me or not. And probably he was right: I was a deadman, but I was done running from trolls
and wasn't going to start crawling from my own kind. I got to my feet and stayed there. A few of my
fellows sucked their teeth with surprise or admiration. I didn't know which. I didn't care. My blood
settled.

"Cowards," I repeated, including my fellows in the curse. Bult took a step toward me. I spat out
another tooth that left a bloody mark on his cheek, and he stayed where he was. "Little children, a little
bit afraid of trolls, a lot more afraid of the Troll-Scorcher. Eyes of fire!" I recalled my cousin, five years
dead and forgotten in the ruins of Deche. "I've seen the Troll-Scorcher's magic, his eyes of fire, just like
you. I've seen them at the muster—nowhere else. I've seen Myron of Yoram burn the heart out of a
trussed-up man when we're all camped for muster, but I've never seen his awful magic out here."

I believed what I said, and I hated Myron of Yoram more than I hated Bult or any troll that ever
lived. It gave me the strength to take a step in Bult's direction.

"Call him, Bult. Call the Troll-Scorcher. Tell him what I've done. Tell him to come and burn me
with the eyes of fire. I'll die for him, Bult, that's what we're here for, isn't it? Call him!"

Once a month, as Guthay's golden face cleared the eastern horizon, we'd all gather around the
fire, hand in hand, to shout the Troll-Scorcher's name to the night. When we'd shouted our throats raw,
Bult would drop to his knees, his veins bulged and throbbing across his brow, and he'd tell the
Troll-Scorcher how many trolls we'd seen since the last time, what they'd done, and what we'd done,
which never changed: they ravaged, and we ran.

"Aye, Bult," someone behind me said. "Call the Troll-Scorcher. Let him decide."

"Manu's right. Maybe the Troll-Scorcher listens to us; maybe he don't. We see his mighty-bright
officers, an' they tell us he's wagin' war somewhere else, but never near us." Another voice in the crowd.

"Never near no one," a woman added, sweet honey to my ringing ears. "Never met no one at the
muster who didn't say the same thing: they seen trolls all year, an' never once seen the Scorcher."

I could feel the power of persuasion around me. "Call him, Bult," I taunted, then reached out for
my fellows' hands and shouted our champion's name.

We all shouted as if Guthay were rising. Bult hit the dust with his eyes squeezed shut. Nothing
happened—but, nothing ever happened when a poor, mortal human called Myron of Yoram.

When the time came and the dark magic was mine, I gave all my templars medallions—lumps of
fired clay for most of them, but hardened with my breath, so they'd never doubt that I could hear them,
see them. No less than Jikkana, Bult was my teacher; he taught me that in the field, fear, morale, and
discipline are different words for the same thing.

And I learned from my younger self, too. If Myron of Yoram had been half a man to begin with,
he'd have heard Bult that day. He'd have stirred himself across the netherworld—I know he had the
power, what he lacked was will and wit—and he'd have struck me down with the eyes of fire.

It was not a mistake I've ever made. When my templars call me, my will is theirs; and when they
rebel or rise against me, I reduce them to grease and ash, as if they'd never been born.

Not Myron of Yoram. I killed Jikkana, my solitary troll, and ten thousand others since, but
Myron of Yoram killed Bult.

"It's outrage," I said softly while Bult still struggled to catch our champion's attention. "We stand
by, human men and women, while trolls ravage our own folk. If we don't run, we howl at the moon, like
beasts, hoping, year after futile year, that someone will hear us, that someone cares enough to come and
kill our enemies for us. What sort of man do we serve? What sort of man is Myron of Yoram, Myron
Troll-Scorcher? It's been ages since he led his army to victory in the Kreegills. Now he hoards trolls like
a miser hoarding metal. He doesn't want victory—he wants his eyes of fire to burn slow from now until
eternity!"

"It's been ages since Guthay wore two crowns for seven days, and then, a single crown for
another three nights. Ten nights together, Omniscience! Not since the Year of Ral's Vengeance in the
177th King's Age," Enver said, reading from a freshly written scroll. "The high bureau scholars have
taken half a quinth to research the archives, but they've at last confirmed what you, Omniscience, no
doubt, remembered."

Hamanu nodded, not because he agreed, but because when Enver's recitation slowed, it was
time for Enver's king to nod his head... and recall what the dwarf had said. Hamanu did pay attention to
what his executor told him, and certain words or intonations would prick him to instant awareness. For
the rest, though, Hamanu remembered faster than Enver recited. He listened with an empty ear, gathering
words the way a drip bucket gathered water, until it was time to nod, and remember.

Having nodded and remembered, Hamanu's thoughts went wandering again as Enver read what
the scholars had dug out of the Urik archives. He had not recalled the exact date when Guthay had put
on her last ten-night performance—the systematic reckoning of years and ages meant little to him
anymore—but he certainly remembered the event, two years after Borys, Butcher of Dwarves, had
become Borys, Dragon of Tyr. That year, whole swaths of the heartland had turned gray with sorcerous
ash, but, yes, Guthay had promised water in abundance and kept her promise.

As she'd kept it this year.

Fifty-eight days ago—twenty days after Guthay had shed her last crown—the gullies north of
Urik had begun to fill. Ten days later, every cultivated field had received twice its allotment of silt-rich
water. At the head of a planting army larger than the first military levy, which Commandant Javed drilled
on the southern high ground, the Lion-King had marched into the pondlike fields and with back-breaking,
dawn-to-dusk labor, planted a year's worth of hope.

The precious water flowed for another ten days. Gullies overflowed their banks. Walls of
sun-baked brick dissolved into mounds of slick, yellow mud. Dumbstruck farmers stepped across their
crumbling thresholds into ankle-deep streams of frigid, mountain water. With their newly planted fields
endangered by an almost inconceivable threat—too much water—the farmers had turned to the priests of
earth and water who, in turn, eighteen days ago, had led an anxious procession through the city walls, to
the very gates of Hamanu's palace.

Hamanu had been waiting for them—he could see farther from his palace rooftop than any priest
in his temple. He'd known the water was still rising, and after a dramatic hesitation, he'd called a second
levy of Urik's able-bodied men, another one from every remaining five. Then, as he rarely did, the
Lion-King explained his intentions: The second levy wouldn't march south to drill with the first. It would
march north, beyond the established fields, and, digging with picks and shovels, pointed sticks and
muddy hands, make new channels to spread Guthay's bounty across the barrens. The newly planted
fields would be spared.

The crowd erupted with a spontaneous cheer for their Lion-King—an infrequent event, though
not as infrequent as the floods that inspired it. By the next sunrise, a thousand men stood at the north
gate. They'd come peacefully, the registrators said—another infrequent event—and fully half of them
were volunteers, which was unprecedented. Fear and worship could sustain a living god, but nothing
compared to the pride Hamanu had felt with them and for them as they marched north to save the fields
from drowning.

Hamanu released the second levy to Javed's mercy and called up a third. One in five of men and
women, both, and every age, would be levied. Five days ago, four thousand Urikites assembled in the
palace forecourt. While the throng watched, the mighty Lion-King had taken a hammer to the doors of
one of Urik's ten sealed granaries, then he'd sent the third levy into the second levy's mud, sacks of seed
slung over their shoulders.

The third levy continued its labor in the flooded field; Hamanu could see hundreds of dark dots
moving slowly across the mud. Pavek was out there, planting seeds with his toes while knee-deep in
muck. His gold medallion was thrown carelessly over one shoulder. Twenty Quraiters worked alongside
him. The hidden village had sent more than its share of farmers—of druids, too, though they strove to
conceal their subtle renewals of the land.

It was a gamble as old as agriculture: if the granary seed they planted sprouted and throve until it
ripened, they'd harvest four sacks for every one they'd risked, a respectable yield for land that hadn't
been cultivated in ages. There'd be grain to sell to less-fortunate neighbors, conquering them with trade
rather than warfare. There might even be enough to justify laying the foundation for an eleventh granary. If
the grain throve—

And if the bonus crop failed, if war came to Urik, or some other disaster intervened, there were
still nine sealed granaries, each with enough grain to feed Urik for a year. Hamanu didn't make blind
gambles with his city's well-being.

"Omniscience, the orators have composed a new encomium." Enver was still reading from his
notes. "They name you Hamanu Water-Wealth, Maker of Oceans. They wish to include the encomium in
tomorrow's harangue. I have the whole text here, Omniscience; I'll read it, if you wish. It's quite good—a
bit too florid for my taste—but I'm sure the people will find it stirring."

"Maker of Oceans," the Lion-King repeated, bringing his attention back to the palace roof.

Ocean was a word his scholars had found in the archives, nothing more. The Lion of Urik
doubted there was anything alive that had seen an ocean—except Rajaat, of course, if Rajaat were alive
in his Hollow prison. Hamanu had glimpsed the memory of an ocean once in Rajaat's crystal visions: blue
water rippling from horizon to horizon, foaming waves that crashed one after the other on sand that never
dried. The steamy moat girdling Urik wasn't an ocean, wasn't even the promise of an ocean. All it
promised—all a living god dared hope that it promised— was a green field and an unexpected harvest.

What did an ocean want before it would be born? What did it need? More than ten nights of
silver rings around a golden moon. More than one year of muddy water as wide as the eye could see.
Borys had taken more than an age to finish the destruction the Cleansing Wars had begun. It had only
been a handful of years since a dragon stalked the heartland. How many years before Urik's cavern
could hold no more and water began to pool above ground?

Maybe then Hamanu would start to believe in oceans.

"The temples of Andarkin and Ulydeman—"

Temples was a word guaranteed to seize Hamanu's attention. He didn't completely forbid the
worship of divinities other than himself—the Lion of Urik was neither a god nor a fool—but he didn't
encourage them. As long as priests of the elemental temples stayed in their time-honored place, the Lion
of Urik tolerated their presence in his city. Their place didn't include Enver's daily list.

Patience had never been Hamanu's virtue, but he felt exceptionally generous this
morning—exceptionally curious, too—and let the dwarf continue without interruption.

"—would proclaim the existence of a demiurge they name Burbote—"

"Mud, dear Enver," Hamanu corrected with a sigh. "The word is mud. Rummaging through their
grimoires looking for words that were old when I was a boy won't change matters. They want to sanctify
mud."

After the Dragon's demise, when change had become inevitable, Hamanu had told his venerable
executor the truth: Urik's Lion-King had been born an ordinary human man in a Kreegill valley thirteen
ages earlier. He was immortal, but he wasn't a god. The dwarf hadn't taken the revelation well. Enver, the
son, grandson, and great-grandson of yellow-robed templars, preferred to believe the lies about
divinity—and omniscience—he'd learned in his own youth.

"If you say it is so, Omniscience, then it must be so," he said stiffly, his chosen response when his
god disappointed him. "The priests of earth and water wish to erect a temple to mark the flood's greatest
extent, but surely they will dedicate it to whomever you wish, even mud."

"Do they claim to have marked the flood's greatest extent, dear Enver? Have the flood waters
begun to recede?"

"Omniscience, I do not know."

Hamanu could not resist baiting his loyal servant. "Neither do I, dear Enver."

"I am at a loss, Omniscience." The dwarf was so stiff it seemed he'd crack and crumble in the
slightest breeze.

"What shall I tell them, Omniscience? That they must rename their demiurge? Or should I tell
them nothing at all until the floods recede?"

"Nothing, I think, would be the wiser course—for all I know, dear Enver, Burbote might
consume all the land between here and the Smoking Crown. He might swell up and drown us all...
Burbote is a he, yes? A muddy demiurge that is female, as well—the combination is more than I can bear
to contemplate."

"Very well, Omniscience. As you will, Omniscience. I shall instruct the priests of Andarkin and
Ulydeman to interrogate their oracles. They've not got the demiurge's name right, and they must be
certain of its maleness... or femaleness... before their proclamation can be read or their temple built. Will
that suffice, Omniscience?"

Enver was a paragon of mortal diligence and rectitude, and almost completely devoid of humor.
But a god who acknowledged his own fallibility had to tolerate the failings of his associates—or dwell in
utter isolation.

"It must, dear Enver. It must."

Hamanu's attention began to wander before Enver was three syllables into the next entry on his
tightly clutched scroll. Between floods and preparations for war, he'd neglected his minions for the better
part of a seventy-five-day quinth. The minions survived, of course—most of them. When he wasn't living
their lives, they lived their own, much as they'd done before he'd woven his curiosity into their being.
Casting an Unseen net, Hamanu touched them, one by one. A beggar had died. A nobleman had eaten
unwisely and suffered the consequences in a dark, befouled corner of his luxurious home. Lord Ursos
entertained an unwilling guest. Cissa's daughter had another tooth coming in. Nouri Nouri'son had
adopted his beggar and put him to work behind the counter of his busy bakery.

Ewer's recitation progressed from religion to refugees, a subject that did not engage Hamanu's
curiosity or require his attention. Though it pleased the Lion-King to think that the suffering citizens of
Raam, Draj, and even far-off Balic would choose Urik as their sanctuary, his templars dealt with such
strangers. Urik's borders were, of course, legally sealed, but Hamanu trusted his yellow-robes to
determine when, where, and against whom his laws should apply.

He went back to his minions, until another trip-word scratched his hollow ear: arrows. The Khelo
fletchers were squabbling with the Codesh butchers over the price of feathers for the thousands of
arrows the army required.

"Tell the butchers they'll sell their damned feathers at the established rate, or their heirs will
donate them in perpet—"

O Mighty Hamanu! Lion-King, Lord, and Master, hear me!

A distant voice echoed in Hamanu's mind. The totality of his awareness raced backward, along a
silver thread of consciousness through the Unseen netherworld, to the source.

The Gray was charged with acid needles, and Hamanu's vision, when he opened his sulphur eyes
above the desperate templar, was streaked with lurid colors. There was powerful magic—someone
else's powerful magic—in the vicinity.

O Mighty Hamanu! Hammer of the World! Grant me invincible armor and earthquake!

Squinting through the magic, Hamanu made out chaos and bloodshed: a full cohort of his own
templars outnumbered by ragtag brigands. Or, not brigands. Another moment's study discerned a
well-armed, well-drilled force disguised for brigandage. In the midst of the Urikites' impending defeat, a
militant, a human man with tears of panic streaming down his face, raised his bronze medallion and
entreated the Lion-King for the third time:

O Mighty Lion, grant me invincible armor and earthquake, lest I die!

A wise invocation—in its way. An earthquake, if Hamanu empowered the spell to create one,
would swallow everything on the battlefield, friend and foe alike, except for the invincibly armored
militant. Though sacrifice was necessary in battle, the Lion-King of Urik was not in the habit of rewarding
militants who'd save themselves and doom the lesser ranks and mercenaries they led. He'd have
considered granting the earthquake while withholding the invincible armor—and savored the militant's
death—if the netherworld turbulence wouldn't have negated any spell he granted.

There were only a handful of mind-benders capable of disturbing the netherworld enough to
disrupt the bond between a champion and his templars. The champions themselves were foremost in that
small group. Hamanu knew the hallmarks of their spellcasting intimately.

Inenek, Hamanu loosed an enemy's name to the Unseen wind. It was her spoor he scented in the
netherworld and her disguised Gulgan templars winnowing his own. Ogre-Naught.

The turbulence ebbed, replaced by a sultry voice, full of seduction and, though Inenek tried to
hide it, hate. You tricked me once, Manu, but never again. Rajaat chose you for your strength, not
your brilliance. You're not as clever as you think you are. Surrender to me, and Urik will survive.

A wind-driven fist shrieked through the Gray with the power to smash a mountain into gravel.

Your promises are as empty as your threats, Inenek, Hamanu replied, dispelling her assault
with a roar of laughter.

Inenek had always been vulnerable to mockery. The netherworld shone with futile lightning; she'd
never learned to control her temper, either. Hamanu dispelled the bolts as he'd dispelled the shrieking fist.
Inenek—the Oba of Gulg, she called herself now—was arguably the least among the champions. How
she'd annihilated the ogres was a mystery Hamanu had never taken the time to solve. He suspected she'd
disguised herself as an ogress and slain every male after taking him into her bed.