“I said get out!”
Fingers curled to claws, Aleatha flew at Roland. Before he could stop her, sharp nails dug into his cheek, leaving four long bleeding tracks. The startled man hied to fend the elf woman off without hurting her, hied to grasp the flailing arms.
“Paithan! Get her off me!”
Caught flat-footed by his sister’s sudden fury, the elf jumped belatedly after her. He grasped Aleatha around the waist, Rega tugged at her arms and, together, they managed to drag the spitting, clawing woman away from Roland.
“Don’t touch me!” Aleatha shrieked, striking out impotently at Rega.
“Better let me handle her,” gasped Paithan, in human. Rega backed off, moved to her brother’s side. The human dabbed at his injured cheek with his hand, glared at the elf woman sullenly.
“Damn bitch!” he muttered in human, seeing blood on his fingers. Not understanding his words, but fully comprehending their tone, Aleatha lunged at him again. Paithan held her, wrestling her back, until suddenly her anger was spent. She went limp in her brother’s grip, breathing heavily.
“Tell me it’s all a lie, Paithan!” she said in a low, passionate voice, resting her head on his chest. “Tell me you’ve lied!”
“I wish to Orn I could, Thea,” Paithan answered, holding her, stroking her hair. “But I can’t. I’ve seen … oh, blessed Mother, Aleatha! What I’ve seen!” He sobbed, clasped his sister convulsively.
Aleatha put both hands on his face, lifted his head, stared into his eyes. Her lips parted in a slight smile, her eyebrows lifted. “I am going to be married. I am going to have a house on the lake. No one, nothing can stop me.” She squirmed out of his embrace. Smoothing back her hair, she arranged the curls prettily over her shoulders. “Welcome home, Paithan, dear. Now that you’re back, take the trash out, will you?”
Aleatha smiled at Roland and Rega. She had spoken the last words in crude human.
Roland put his hand on his sister’s arm.
“Trash, uh? Come on. Sis. Let’s get out of here!” Rega cast a pleading glance at Paithan, who stared at her helplessly. He felt like a sleeper who, on first awakening, can’t move his limbs.
“You see how it is!” Roland snarled. “I warned you!” He let loose of her, took a step off the porch. “Are you coming?”
“Pardon me,” said Zifnab, “but I might point out that you haven’t really any place to go—”
“Paithan! Please!” Rega begged.
Roland stomped down the stairs onto the mossy lawn. “Stay here!” he shouted back over his shoulder. “Warm the elf’s bed! Maybe he’ll give you a job in the kitchen!”
Paithan flushed in anger, took a step after Roland. “I love your sister! I—”
—The sound of horns trumpeted through the still, morning air. The elf’s gaze turned in the direction of Lake Enthial, his lips tightened. Reaching out, he caught hold of Rega, drew her close. The moss began to rumble and quake beneath their feet. Drugar, who had said no word, made no movement the entire time, slid his hand into his belt.
“Now!” cried Zifnab testily, clinging to the porch railing for support. “If I may be allowed to finish a sentence, I’d like to say that—”
“Sir,” intoned the dragon, its voice rising from beneath the moss, “they’re here.”
“That’s it,” muttered Haplo, hearing the horn calls. He looked up from his hiding place in the wilderness, made a gesture to the dog. “All right. You know what to do. Remember, I just want one!”
The dog bounded off into the jungle, disappearing from sight in the thick foliage. Haplo, tense with anticipation, glanced around the coppice where he lay hidden. All was ready. He had only to wait.
The Patryn had not gone to the elven house with the rest of his shipboard companions. Making some excuse about performing repairs on his vessel, he had stayed behind. When he had seen them cross the large backyard, its moss blackened and charred from Lenthan’s rocketry experiments, Haplo had climbed over the ship’s hull to walk along the wooden “bones” of the dragon wing. To walk the dragon wing. To risk everything, life included, to gain your goal. Where had he heard that saying? He seemed to recall Hugh the Hand mentioning it. Or had it been the elf captain whose ship the Patryn had “acquired”? Not that it mattered. The saying didn’t count for much with the ship parked securely on the ground, the drop beneath only about three feet instead of three thousand. Still, Haplo had thought, jumping down lightly to the ground, the sense of the saying was, at this moment, appropriate.
To walk the dragon wing.
He crouched in his hiding place, waiting, running over the runes he would use in his mind, fingering each like an elven jeweler searching for flaws in a string of pearls. The construct was perfect. The first spell cast would trap the creature. The second hold it, the third bore into its mind—what mind there was.
In the distance, the horn bleats grew louder and more chaotic, sometimes one would end in a horrible, gurgling cry. The elves must be battling their enemy, and the fighting was drawing near his position from the sounds of it. Haplo ignored it. If the tytans handled the elves the way they had handled the humans—and Haplo didn’t have any reason to suppose the elves would do any better—the fight wouldn’t last long.
He listened, straining, for another sound. There it came—the dog’s barking. It, too, was moving in his direction. The Patryn heard nothing else, and at first he was worried. Then he remembered how silently the tytans moved through the jungle. He wouldn’t hear the creature, he realized, until it was on him. He licked his dry lips, moistened his throat.
The dog bounded into the coppice. Flanks heaved, tongue lolled from its mouth, its eyes were wide with terror. Wheeling, it turned in the middle of the grove and barked frantically.
The tytan came close behind. As Haplo had hoped, the creature had been lured away from its fellows by the pesky animal. Entering the grove, it stopped, sniffed. The eyeless head revolved slowly. It smelted or heard or “saw” man. The tytan’s giant body towered over Haplo, the eyeless head stared directly at the Patryn. When the tytan ceased movement, its camouflaged body blended almost perfectly into the background of the jungle. Haplo blinked, almost losing sight of it. For a moment, he panicked, but he calmed himself. No matter. No matter. If my plan works, the creature’ll be moving, all right. No doubt about that!
Haplo began to speak the runes. He raised his tattooed hands.
The sigla seemed to glide off his skin and dance into the air. Flashing fiery blue and flaming red, the runes built upon themselves, multiplying with extraordinary speed.
The tytan gazed at the runes without interest, as if the creature had seen all this before and found it intensely boring. The tytan moved toward Haplo, the incessant question rattled in his head.
“Citadel, right. Where is the citadel? Sorry, I can’t take time to answer you right now. We’ll talk in just a few moments,” Haplo promised, backing up. The rune construct was complete, and he could only hope it was working. He eyed the tytan closely. The creature continued coming toward him, its wistful pleading changing instantly to violent frustration. Haplo felt a qualm, his stomach clenched. Beside him, the dog whined in terror.
The tytan paused, turned its head, slavering mouth gaped open in confusion. Haplo began to breathe again.
Sigla, glowing red and blue, had twined together, draping themselves like huge curtains over the jungle trees. The spell wrapped completely around the coppice, surrounding the tytan. The creature turned this way and that. The runes were reflecting its own image back to it, flooding its brain with pictures and sensations of itself.
“You’re all right. I’m not going to hurt you,” said Haplo soothingly, speaking in his own language—the language of the Patryns, similar to that of the Sartan. “I’ll let you go, but first we’re going to talk about the citadel. Tell me what it is.”