I had flown first to the southern shore, where the last of the Gedri were taking their goods onto the ship that lay out in the harbour. The soulgems of the Lost were nowhere near, so I flew north along the trail that we kept clear.
Even as I approached the settlement I could smell the Raksha-stink. The camp reeked of it, growing ranker as I passed through the cleared spaces. There was the blackened site of my fight with the Raksha, smouldering yet—there the second of the wooden dwellings that had been here for centuries, there at the north end the doused ashes of the great campfire that had burned night and day. I landed in the clearing where the tents had been—it was the largest—and faced north and east. As I stood, I heard again faintly the soulgems' wail.
The sky to the east began to lighten, an end at last to this endless night. I listened and waited, and wondered what I would do when the creature arrived.
I did not have long to wait. I smelled them long before I saw them, Raksha-stink and Gedrismell, two of the creatures hurrying towards the clearing.
When they saw me they stopped abruptly.
Kédra leant down and let us off at the Boundary. Lanen took off at speed as though she knew exactly where she was going, but I'd not had even the little sleep she had and I was tired. I also did not wish to be any too close to whatever was going to happen. I dragged myself along, drifting some ways east along the Boundary.
Sudden as lightning a Dragon landed a good ways ahead of me (ignoring me entirely, thank the Lady) and started sniffing along the ground. I could hear him from where I stood (some distance downwind of him), so I decided to stop and watch. Didn't take him long to find what he sought; he turned his head and shot a blazing stream of fire at the ground. Content with that, it seems, he ran straight on—and those things can run, let me tell you. He seemed to move even faster than Kédra, low to the ground and fast as a snake. He was out of sight in a heartbeat.
My way lay in the same direction, so after a few minutes I followed him, and came upon the empty campsite just as true dawn was beginning to break. I moved forward cautiously, past trampled grass and ashes of dead fires—
And there before me sat a young battle ready to begin. On one side stood the silver dragon, Akor it was, who had saved Lanen's life; I had lost track of the copper-coloured beast I had just seen. On the other was Caderan, looking fresh and strong, and Marik looking like a man at the end of his tether and ready for desperate measures. At the north end of the clearing, Kédra and Lanen had found one another again. He crouched like a great cat about to spring, but Lanen held desperately to the trunk of an old ash tree, as though that was the only thing keeping her from leaping into the fight. I staved well back and well hidden.
I stood in the trees to the northeast, silent and hidden, waiting behind the two Gedri that had just arrived, waiting for Akhor to destroy them. To my disgust he did not, but spoke to them instead.
"Give them back, Merchant. Put down your burden and give them back to us, and we will let you live."
"And so again you break the treaty, with not even the show of ceremony this time," drawled the shorter one, the one who reeked of the Rakshasa. ''I had heard it said that the Kantri were creatures of Order. I must have been mistaken."
"Chaos breaks order, rakshadakh, when it oversteps its lawful bounds," hissed Akhor in deep anger. "Do not speak to me of treaties, you who have brought the Rakshasa to this place. Be glad I do not slay you where you stand, holding my kinsmen against their will."
"What do you say? Kinsmen?" said the tall one. "How should we constrain your kinsmen? We are mere men, we cannot command Dragons."
It was an unfortunate word for the Gedri to use. Dragons. The Lesser Kindred. Whose helpless soulgems he bore.
I could bear it no longer. I ran out, flaming, meaning to destroy these vermin as they deserved and recover the soul-gems of the Lost.
My flame did not affect them in the slightest.
I moved as one in a dark dream, slowly, as time sped on and left me behind to fight limbs like stone. Rishkaan's flame did not touch them. He stopped, wide-eyed, and sent again a blast of purifying fire against the rakshadakh, the demon slave that stood beside Marik and spoke with the tongue of falsehood and darkness.
The rakshadakh laughed, untouched, and lifted his hand. An answering flame shot from his fingers, black and red, not like true flame at all, and I heard Rishkaan cry out in pain.
And time snapped back into its place, my limbs were mine again, and I leapt into the air. If flame did no good, I might at least injure them when I landed. I was not thinking clearly, of course, for the Lost called to me endlessly. I flew so that I would fall on the Gedri with extended claws and that was my saving, for no sooner had the large claw of my foot come nigh the rakshadakh than it was sheared off. If I had practiced I could not have managed to do what I did, but somehow I swerved and tumbled gracelessly to the ground beyond them, unharmed as yet. I felt that dark flame pass over me as I fell, and unlikely though it seems I finally began to think.
How could we fight them? Our flame was useless, and now it seemed we could not reach them physically—what was left? Then Lanen's voice rang in my mind.
I couldn't help myself, I called out to him without thinking. "Akor! What's wrong, what in the Hells is happening? I saw Caderan shoot flame from his fingers, he's Marik's demon master, why don't you fry the bastard where he stands?"
Akor's answer came swift but wearily. "Tried—flame no effect—can't touch him either, the rakshadakh has some protection against us. Where are you?"
''Kédra and I are on the north side of the clearing, in the trees. Are you hurt?"
His answer chilled me.
''Not yet.''
Fear, loathing, anger—in a lucid moment they transformed into cold, calculating thought, as Jamie's drills on battle came back to me. If your enemy is unarmed, use your fist, you've a long reach and he won't expect it. If he's wearing light armour, use your dagger to pierce the joints. If his armour turns your dagger, use your sword. If it turns your sword, get under his guard and push him over backwards across your ankle, he won't expect that either.
I knew Caderan must have several spells going at once. It couldn't be easy to keep all that up.
If only I could find something to distract him—
The Lady's servants say that thought is the birth of action. I believe it, for no sooner had the thought come to me than Rishkaan, glowing in the sunrise, leapt into the air and beat his wings, climbing swiftly into the morning. I couldn't believe it, he was running away, leaving Akor to face the two of them alone.
Marik, who had seemed to be mumbling to himself since Rishkaan first attacked, raised his hand, and in the dawn light I saw the sun glinting off something on his finger, a ring of some kind. Then I realised it wasn't sunlight; the ring was glowing a bright and hideous red. He said something I couldn't understand and turned the back of his hand to Akor.
Something small and swift, glowing even in daylight, flew from his hand and struck Akor in the chest. I watched helpless as red blood flowed from him, obscenely lovely against his silver armour, while I hid unmarked in the trees, horrified, helpless, furious.
I did not know I was wounded until I heard Lanen cry out. I looked down and saw a small red stream trickling from a perfectly circular wound high on my chest, and I knew. Nothing pierces our hides save Raksha-fire. Marik was in their service, and I would kill him if I could. If he didn't kill me first.