Overhead, the dragons began to change the patterns they were weaving, moving from chords to a powerful unity. Julia put a crick in her neck watching them. For a while she didn’t understand what was happening, then she saw they were revving up to reinforce the little healer, magic dynamos resonating to a single beat. Magic merging with technology, power is power. She smiled, rubbed at her neck, nearly dropped the cup as the two figures were suddenly giants sharply limned against an apple-green sky. She squinted against grit-laden erratic winds, watching the figures circle about each other in a stately combat more like a dance than a battle to the death.
Nekaz Kole watched the circling giants and felt ice knotting under his ribs, failure sour in his mouth. He scanned the wall, seeing shadows in every embrasure he could look through; he suspected they were watching the drama on the mountain peaks and for a moment considered taking advantage. He twisted around, scowled at the Nor. The golden minark was staring transfixed at that deadly dance. “Ser Xaowan,” he said sharply. The minark showed no sign of hearing him. Kole scanned his face, cursed under his breath and abandoned any thought of an attack. Frustrated and furious he settled back to wait, glaring at the giant figures, wondering how to incorporate the battle into his own plans once the gates burned through.
Tuli saw Ildas fade, turn cool and hollow as the giant figures swelled into the sky and began that dance of restrained violence. She held him in her lap and felt a hollow growing inside herself, a weariness that seemed the sum of all the weary days and nights she’d spent since this travail began. At least he wasn’t lost completely this time, his ghost stayed with her, giving her a hope he’d be whole again as soon as… she didn’t know as soon as what. The army sat on the hillsides, their usual clamor muted, the men gaping at the show. Coperic stood beside her, his eyes fixed on the green glass figure, shocked and afraid. He knew her, Tuli saw that, and she was important to him. His hands were clenched into fists, his wiry body taut, as if by willing it he could add his strength to hers. Tuli cupped her hands about the sketchy outline of the fireborn and fought with a sudden jealous anger.
And the dance went on.
Nilis sat with the other Keepers, throbbing with the power flowing through and out of her, barely conscious, blending into a single being with those others, concentrating on endurance, on lasting until the need was over.
Serroi caught hold of his sound wrist, another quick step and she held the withered hand. Light closed about them, beginning to dissolve them.
Ser Noris changed.
His mouth gapes in a silent scream, his body writhes, his skin darkens, roughens, cracks, turns fibrous and coarse. Eyes, mouth, all features, dissolve into the skin, vanish. His head elongates, bifurcates, the portions spread apart and grow upward, dividing again and again. His arms strain up and out, stretching and thinning, his fingers split into his palms, grow out and out, whiplike branches in delicate fans, twigs grow from the branches, buds popping out from them, the buds unfolding into new green needle sprays.
Serroi changes, her body echoing everything happening in his.
The cliff cracks, shatters, great shards of stone rumbling into the valley, an unstable ramp bathed in dust that billows up and up, drawn to the glowing, changing giants, shrouding them.
When the dust settled, the giants were gone. Two trees grew at the edge of the broken cliff, a tall ancient conifer, a shorter, more delicate lacewood.
A hush spread across the valley, a hush that caught mercenaries, exiles, mijlockers, meien, everyone, and held them for a dozen breaths, long enough for them to become aware of that stillness, to notice that the glass dragons had vanished, the sky was empty.
26
Ignoring the hush, the Kulaan closed around Nekaz Kole; two tossed a third up behind him, another trio dealt with the Nor. Before Kole could react, a skinning knife slid into him, piercing his heart. The Kual pushed him from the saddle and jumped after him. The Nor was down also, dead before he could know he was dying, so tangled was he in the battle on the cliff.
Without breaking their silence, the Kulaan started briskly away, one Kual leading the gold rambut. They didn’t touch the demon macai.
The beast stood frozen, locked into place by the metamorphosis of its creator, Ser Noris. Locked into place and beginning to rot, the demon essence coming loose from the natural part. Before the Kulaan had vanished into the brush, the skin and bones collapsed out of the smoky black outlines. A breath later, the demon residue faded, vanished.
Warmth followed the hush across the valley, visible in eddies of golden light spilling over the walls, flooding over the army, waking the men from their daze, prodding them into movement, urging them away from the valley. The Ogogehians snapped into alertness, found Nekaz Kole dead, the norits dazed and helpless. They split into small groups, rifled the supply wagons and marched away, the Shawar shooing them on until they started down from the saddle of the pass.
They crossed the foot of the Plain, made their way through the Kotsila Pass and descended on Sankoy like a swarm of starving rats, looting and killing, working off their fury and shame at their defeat, paying themselves for the gold they’d never collect. They trickled into the several port cities, commandeered sufficient shipping and went home.
The Sankoise were slower to understand and react, but the unleashed Shawar nudged them from their lethargy and into movement. They began drifting away from their camps, abandoning much of their equipment, some of them even ignoring their mounts, moving slowly almost numbly at first, then faster and faster until they were running. They settled to a more conserving gait when they passed beyond the reach of the golden warmth, but they were a ragged, weary, starving remnant by the time they crossed Kotsila Pass and straggled down to a homeland in chaos with no time and less will to welcome them.
Few of the dedicated Followers were left on their feet, most were laid in the mud; those that survived huddled in dazed groups about the mindless norits. But the others, the tie-conscripts there because they had no choice, they needed no urging to leave. They followed the Ogogehians over the supply wagons, carrying off all they could stuff in improvised packs. They went home to starvation and raids from human wolves, young men roaming the Plain attacking anything that seemed vulnerable; they went home to a guarded welcome as chill as the winter winds sweeping the Plain, a welcome that warmed considerably when they joined the folk inside the walls, added the food they brought to the common store and helped fight off the raiders through the rest of the winter.
(Hern ranged the land with a motorized force of meien and exiles, gradually restoring order, bringing isolated settlements into the common fold, passing out the rescued grain.)
Tuli crowed with pleasure as Ildas plumped out and began vibrating with his contented coo. Cradling him against her ribs she got to her feet and moved to stand beside Coperic.
He was staring at the patch of green on the top of the ruined cliff, strain in his face and body as he fought to deal with the loss of a friend and perhaps more than friend. Tuli watched, angry again, jealous, wanting to strike at him for the hurt he was giving her. She remembered how much she needed him and kept a hold on her temper and her mouth so she wouldn’t say or do anything she’d regret later.
Coperic sighed as he relaxed. He put his hand on Tuli’s shoulder. “Looks like it’s over.”
“Uh-huh. Kole’s dead.”
“I saw.” He lifted a hand, squinted against the gilded light pouring like water over the wall, washing over the army. “Rats are running for their holes. Time we was leaving too. Bella.”