Ashok met Vedoran’s shrewd gaze. “Did I ever say I intended to break him?” he said.
“Then what are you planning?” Vedoran asked.
But Ashok just shook his head. “You’re right,” he said. “I do want him to stay the way he is. So I hope he and I can come to an understanding. Though I admit, he is the last place I should look to find hope.” Smiling crookedly, Ashok checked his armor and weapons, then pulled himself up and swung a leg over the iron fence. “If he tears me apart,” he called down, “you’ll know I was wrong.”
He landed in a crouch. The dry, scorched grass crackled under his boots. His heart rate had already picked up, but he worked to even his accelerated breathing. He fought to show his respect for the red-eyed menace bucking wildly across the paddock, so the beast would not misinterpret the relish in Ashok’s eyes.
Olra caught sight of Ashok standing on the wrong side of the fence. Her eyes widened in furious horror.
“That wasn’t our agreement, fool!” she shouted at him.
“Don’t stop him now, I beg you,” came Skagi’s voice. “The fun’s just beginning.”
Skagi, Chanoch, and Cree walked side by side toward the fence from the direction of the training yard. Vedoran joined them, and together they spread out and climbed the fence at various points, forming a protective perimeter around Ashok. The guards filled in around them.
The nightmare stilled when he saw Ashok inside the fence. Ashok watched his cunning eyes and saw them register that something was different. Somehow, the beast knew what was coming.
A quiver ran down the nightmare’s body as it regarded Ashok from a distance. He didn’t charge, as Ashok had expected him to do. Instead he regarded the shadar-kai calmly, pacing back and forth thirty feet in front of him. There was almost no fire burning up the beast’s mane, only the intermittent flashes of gold nested in the flowing black hair.
Ashok stood with his arms loose at his sides. Slowly, he removed the chain at his belt.
“What’d you do to your spikes?” Chanoch called out, and the nightmare froze, hissing a steamy breath that hung on the cold air like a phantom.
Ashok turned a brief, fierce glare on Chanoch, and the young one obediently fell quiet. He unwrapped the chain and let the spikes loop upon the ground. The sharp points he’d wrapped in a protective coating of leather-stiff, but not fire resistant-into an iron whip, except he had no intention of striking the beast unless it was absolutely necessary.
But the nightmare couldn’t know that. As soon as he saw Ashok loop the end of the chain across his knuckles, he backed off, rearing high in the air, his flaming fetlocks streaking yellow afterimages across Ashok’s vision.
Ashok slid a step forward, refusing to show any sign of intimidation.
The nightmare snorted a breath and charged, his scream echoing across the paddock and beyond, into the city.
Ashok dived to the side. He felt the wall of heat graze his body as the nightmare barreled past, but it was the scream that tore into his concentration and shredded all his carefully composed plans.
In the open space, the sound echoed off the canyon wall and came back magnified a dozen times. Skagi, Cree, Chanoch, and Vedoran all wavered on the fence, but they held, balancing with their legs and clamping their free hands over their ears until the sound became bearable.
Ashok didn’t have that luxury. As soon as the nightmare could, it skidded to a stop and turned its huge body, charging again. Ashok leaped to his feet and whipped the chain over his head in a wide arc. He brought the weapon down in front of his body to strike the ground, over and over, warning the nightmare off.
“My ground,” Ashok cried, and his voice was loud and disjointed in the wake of the awful scream. “Yield!”
But the nightmare kept coming, heedless of its own safety. It was going to run Ashok down.
Ashok knew it was a critical test. If he gave way, the nightmare would always be in control. No matter what he tried, the beast would know that in the end, Ashok would be the one to yield.
So Ashok swung the chain and forced himself to stand while the flaming death charged him, eating up the ground between them in mere breaths. The scream rang out again, and crimson eyes were all Ashok could see.
It happened so fast, Ashok hardly had time to register the outcome.
The nightmare changed its course a fraction and charged past him. Ashok felt the heat again, so close that his eyes watered. He felt the burn in his nostrils. But he was still standing. The nightmare charged past him and screamed in terrible fury.
The nightmare ended its failed challenge by ramming its head into the fence inches from where Cree perched. The shadar-kai was forced to jump down to safety, and Ashok caught the faint scent of singed hair where the nightmare’s flames had kissed him.
The beast’s mane was fully ablaze, with flames that glowed blue at the roots. The nightmare gave off a horrible scent of burning flesh, though Ashok knew he was unharmed by the fire that came from within. The stench of burning was for the benefit of its prey, a warning to any who would dare attack him.
“You won’t burn me,” Ashok said, “not when I’m on your back.”
“You won’t ride him without a saddle,” Olra hollered across the field. “Don’t even try it.”
“She’s right,” Cree said. “The wizards have a means: a saddle enchanted to protect you from the fire.”
“I’ll get it,” Olra said.
“No,” said Ashok, shaking his head. “It’s not fair to him. He should have his chance at me.”
Olra cursed, loudly enough for Ashok to hear across the field. “I knew this would happen,” she said. She motioned to one of her guards, who handed her a longbow and a full quiver. She perched on the fence and nocked an arrow, training it on the nightmare.
Ashok glared at her. “You won’t use that,” he said, “unless I give the word.”
“Careful,” Vedoran warned from Ashok’s other side.
Ashok set his chin stubbornly. “This is my fight,” he said.
“This is my ground, fledgling,” Olra said. She raised the bow. “You do as I tell you.”
Fury burned in Ashok’s chest. He stripped his dagger from its sheath before he thought and threw it across the field. It passed over the nightmare’s head and clanged loudly off the iron fence next to Olra.
The Camborr flinched; the arrow wavered, and she jumped down so she wouldn’t fall. When she’d regained her balance, the look she cast Ashok was one of pure rage.
Behind Ashok, Vedoran sighed. “That was a mistake,” he said.
“I’m aware of it,” Ashok said through gritted teeth. But he couldn’t take it back.
“Take him out of there,” Olra said to her guards. “If he resists, put a spear in his gut. I’ll get the nightmare.”
“Wait,” Ashok said as the guards approached the fence. If they disturbed the field, it was all over. He looked at Olra, but was aware all the time of the nightmare standing strangely quiet, as if he too were waiting to see how the tableau played out. “I apologize for my disrespect,” Ashok said. The words came to his lips as if dredged from deep water. “But I’m here now, and”-he glanced at the nightmare, forcing himself to meet that red, inscrutable gaze-“I’m not leaving. We have to compromise.”
“He’s right,” Vedoran said. “Even if he is a fool.”
Good-natured laughter came from Skagi and the rest, and even Olra’s black gaze softened a bit. Ashok felt a strange prickling along his skin, a feeling like the others were in the struggle with him. They wanted success for Ashok as much as he himself did. It was the sense of community again, of trust that he couldn’t fathom.
This is how it could have been with them, Ashok thought. Lakesh … My brothers.
No. That kind of distraction truly would get him killed. Ashok clamped down on the treacherous thoughts and the echoes of the past, and focused on the nightmare.
“You’re in my thoughts, aren’t you?” he whispered. “You and I will dance now, but we’ll dance again tonight, on your field.” Ashok hoped he was ready.