Raksha remained on his feet as habit took over and he paced the interior of his tent. “Why didn’t the explosion kill this Memnarch as well?”
“I don’t know,” Glissa said. “Protective magic? A big mirror? Dumb luck? My bad luck? How isn’t important right now, but we’ll find out. Still, at the time Slobad and I thought it had killed him. The blast flattened a few square miles of the Tangle. It killed hundreds, maybe thousands of creatures from what I could see. It did this to my hair. And the elves…” She took a deep breath, and her voice became cold. “Yulyn mentioned that dozens of elves disappeared when it happened. No elves have ever lived close to the Radix, but anyone who was in the Tangle when the lacuna blew open must be dead. It’s the only explanation.”
“But also dead are those armies of artifacts,” Raksha said. “You destroyed them. Had we not already witnessed this power of yours firsthand, we would doubt your claim.”
“The inside was crawling with them, though. Some kinds I’d never seen. Some looked like normal animals, but entirely metal. I don’t know how he’s making them, or even if he’s making them, but it looked like he had plenty of company down there. And yes, I do seem to have some kind of ability, but it doesn’t always work. It drains me.”
“What do you think might have happened to the goblin?” Raksha asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Glissa said, settling into a soft folding chair in Raksha’s tent. “He’s going to use Slobad to manipulate me. The little guy’s a hostage. And damn it, it’s working. I’m feeling pretty manipulated, but I’m still going to save him, Raksha.”
“We do not doubt it, Glissa,” Raksha replied.
The Kha was glad for this time to speak alone with Glissa. Among all these strange visitors who of late kept turning his well-ordered, albeit violent, world upside down, he trusted her the most. What’s more, he liked her, for an elf. The two of them were bound by a common enemy that had singled out each of them for death-he too had been attacked by Memnarch’s machines the night Glissa’s family was killed, though he’d heretofore thought the vedalkens were behind the plot. Yet for some reason, Memnarch and his vedalken minions had sent no more cursed artifact beasts to attack Taj Nar once the elf girl had departed. Glissa claimed it was her special power, this “spark” that Memnarch desired, that made all the difference.
Raksha didn’t like being attacked by mysterious forces he didn’t understand. But to be attacked, and somehow found not worthy of the fight, made him hate this Memnarch even more.
Glissa drew on the mug of leonin nush and stared into the sparkiron coals burning in a small pit in the center of the tent. The flammable metal, a common enough substance all over Mirrodin, crackled as a bit of oil dripped off the small game animal Raksha was preparing on a spit. The leonin Kha followed Glissa’s eyes as she watched a tiny orange spark flutter up the column of heat, through a vent, and into the night sky. In moments the cinder had joined the thousands upon thousands that filled the heavens.
“Forgive me,” Raksha’s baritone rumbled. As the drink soothed his nerves, he slipped again into a more informal tone. “The last few weeks have been hectic. Violent. I’ve lost too many men, and the leonin need to make a stand soon, before we’re fighting the nim at our front door again. I do not like being cornered. I do not like to lose warriors or friends.”
“Rishan.” Glissa spoke the name that Raksha could still not bring to his lips without breaking his composure. “Sorry, I’d-I’d forgotten. Slobad used to tell me how he thought he’d been jinxed. Thought he was a jinx. But I guess I’m the one who’s really bad luck, huh?”
Raksha turned, wincing as the bandages moved with him and made his chest feel like a pincushion again. “You are not responsible for Rishan’s death,” he whispered, choking slightly on the name of his lost beloved, the seer Ushanti’s daughter. “And despite what you say, I doubt you caused Slobad’s either.” He raised his iron mug. “To the lost. And the missing.”
Glissa lifted her mug in two hands. “The lost. And those who will be found.” They drank, and passed the next half-minute in silence.
The moment shattered with the clamor of scattered skirmishes that still rang in the distance. Jethrar appeared at the entrance to Raksha’s tent. Behind him stood Raksha’s cousin Yshkar, an imposing figure in burnished silver armor plate that like the rest of him was spattered with alternating patterns of green and red blood. The green came from the nim-it was too light to be Viridian. Fortunately.
“My Kha, sir! Reporting as ordered, with Commander-” Jethrar began. Yshkar unceremoniously pushed his way past the young guard and came muzzle-to-muzzle with Raksha.
“What is it, Kashi? I’m needed on the front!” Raksha’s cousin roared.
Raksha’s reaction was immediate and painful for his impertinent cousin. The backhand caught the commander across the right jaw and knocked him back into the hapless Jethrar, who fell backward out of the tent. Yshkar stayed light on his feet and kept his balance, hissing, but the younger leonin turned his ears forward and bowed his head slightly-body language that told Raksha he’d made his point clear to his cousin. Such language from a subordinate was intolerable.
“You, Kyshka, are required where and when your Kha says you are required,” Raksha growled, the menace rising in his voice. “You’re also blood, and that means we trust you, even if we don’t particularly like you. We trust your nature, which is as honorable as ours. You are impulsive. You are headstrong. You are not yet the finest commander in the field, but you will be.”
“My Kha!” Yshkar snarled, and dropped to one knee, head still bowed. “My blood is still hot with battle. Forgive you humble kin. I serve Taj Nar and the Golden Cub. What is it you will of me?”
Raksha grinned. “Don’t overdo it, Kysh.”
Yshkar looked up and noticed Glissa, who watched the scene over her mug with an arched eyebrow. The commander’s fur bristled along the back of his neck, and his inner ears blushed a rusty red. He shoved off one knee and returned to his feet. “All right, we’re even, my Kha. Yet still I stand ready to serve.”
“Good,” Raksha said and indicated Glissa, who set her glass on the floor and made to rise. “No, please, stay where you are. You are a guest in the Kha’s home. Yshkar, meet Glissa of the Tangle. The human is her ally, the younger elf her sister. Glissa brings news that makes what we’re about to tell you even more important than it was when we sent for you.”
“My cousin, always direct and to the point.” Yshkar smirked. Raksha raised a lip and exposed a few teeth, and the smirk disappeared.
“You’re fortunate we value your independent spirit as much as our blood kinship, commander. That as much as anything is why you’ve earned a promotion to general.” Yshkar’s jaw dropped.
“My Kha, the leonin armies have but one general,” Raksha’s cousin said. “You. Are you-?” The meaning of the bandages wrapped around the Kha’s golden torso finally sank in.
“We have been ordered by the royal physician to leave active duty for at least a week. But just because the Kha cannot fight on the field does not mean he is not fighting. We’re going to hew a line in the grass, and establish a permanent field command that will be our den home fortress until we beat these foul things back into their nests. But you will have to be the Kha’s adjunct on the battlefield.”
“My Kha, I am ready to serve,” Yshkar said.
“Excuse me, your Kha,” Glissa said, “but there are a few things you need to know before you begin planning your defenses.”
“Of course,” Raksha said. “Yshkar, we’ll explain all of this later. For now, you’re free to return to the front. Spread word among the field commanders that we will soon be moving out, but do not make it sound like a retreat.” Then, in a casual move that belied the act’s importance, he drew his sword and offered it blade-first to Yshkar. The younger leonin removed his gauntlets and clutched the blade with his naked paws, squeezing until blood welled up. With a snarl, he pulled the sword smoothly from Raksha’s paws, still holding it by the blade, which was now dripping silvery scarlet onto the tent floor. Without wiping either the blade or his own paws clean, Yshkar slid the sword into his own belt and replaced his gauntlets.