Bone War (24 page)

“Fae?” Kalessa reared back in shock. “In the orc lands? They never venture outside their forests.”

“They appear to have expanded their boundaries,” Aisa said grimly. “We will have to swing east to avoid them.”

Kalessa was trembling with the effort of keeping herself calm. “My family's lands are near the fork in the Great Wyrm Rivers to the south and east,” she said. “Near the breeding grounds. It is on our way to the South Sea. We must hurry.”

Danr wordlessly climbed onto Kalessa's back. The
moment he was settled, she vaulted forward, and he barely kept his seat. Slynd rushed to catch up, and Aisa fled into the sky as a falcon again. They rode grimly onward without speaking past mile after mile of dead and scorched grassland. More than once, Aisa dove at them and shot to the east, telling them to swerve aside and avoid a Fae encampment. Danr saw plenty of little fairy tracks.

“How did they do this?” Danr asked at one point. “The orcs have iron weapons.”

“I am unsure,” Kalessa hissed without checking her pace. “The Fae have powerful magic and are better archers than we, but orcs are warriors, and the Fae have not ventured outside their forests for a thousand years.”

In order to remain unseen, they decided to travel at night and hide during the day. Danr could see perfectly well at night, and Aisa could fly ahead as a scout in the form of an owl. Wyrms, it turned out, depended on smell from their tongues and vibrations in the ground to navigate as much as they used their eyes, so darkness gave them no trouble. They slid forward as fast as they dared under eerie summer skies, speaking only when they had to, and then in low murmurs. Twice they encountered Fae on patrol—sprites and fairies and once a company of elves—but they ignored Aisa, who appeared to be a simple owl, and Kalessa merely curled around Danr to hide him while Slynd hissed at the passing Fae, as if he and Kalessa were a mated pair of wild wyrms. The Fae paid no attention to them.

Their food gave out. Aisa was forced to widen her range and hunt small game. She brought rabbits back to Danr, who ate them raw. Kalessa and Slynd could go a week or more without eating, though it wouldn't be comfortable for either of them, and Kalessa said she wanted no food.

The ride was difficult and exhausting. Danr slept restlessly during the day, his hat pulled low over his face against the relentless prairie sun. When not in animal form, Aisa almost never wore clothes and instead preferred to go
naked beneath a simple cloak. “Easier by far to get into and out of,” she explained as she pulled the cloak around herself one morning. Her face was pinched and tired.

“Is it harder to come back to human shape?” he asked. “You spend the entire night as an animal, and I'm afraid you might lose yourself.”

“This does not happen.” She yawned and curled herself under the cloak as Kalessa and Slynd wove their usual ring around them. “I am myself, no matter what shape I take. The same happens to you.”

The next night, they found orcs. They had just crossed a river—part of the Great Wyrm, Kalessa said—and the grass and flowers had returned. Kalessa was showing some relief at this. Danr could feel that her muscles were a little more relaxed as he rode her. He smelled the campfires before he saw their glow, and Aisa swooped back to lead them. Kalessa put on a burst of speed, and in moments they found themselves at a great wall of woven wyrms. They hissed menacingly until Kalessa hissed back and snarled at them, whereupon they fell silent and unwove to let Kalessa and the others through.

Beyond was an encampment of orcs. Dozens of tents of all sizes were scattered among small fires. Already several orcs were emerging from them. Their greenish complexions and golden eyes looked strange in the firelight, and the sharp, curved swords they bore gleamed in the flickering light. They seemed a bit confused. Danr was clearly not an orc, but he was accompanied by two wyrms. Aisa the owl silently landed and burst into her human shape. Danr tossed her the cloak while the orcs shouted an alarm and raised their weapons.

“It's all right!” Danr called. “We're—”

“Mother!” Kalessa shot forward and nearly bowled over a particularly tall orcish woman with graying auburn hair in a long braid down her back. She looked, in fact, very much like Kalessa. Or would have, if Kalessa hadn't changed her shape.

Xanda recovered herself quickly. She recognized her daughter's voice, if not her shape. With a gesture, she told the rest of the orcs to stand down. “Kalessa! What in the name of the Nine? Are you all right? What has happened? Is that Danr and Aisa with you?”

“I had an encounter with a shape mage,” Kalessa said. “But I am fine.”

“This is . . . unbelievable.” Xanda reached out to touch her daughter's face, both exploring it and expressing a mother's tenderness. “Can you change back?”

“Not yet.” Kalessa's tongue flickered out, not quite touching Xanda. “Where is Father? And Jaxo? And—”

But Xanda's face told the story. Aisa gasped, and Danr's insides twisted. He glanced around. The other orcs of the Nest had grim faces, and Danr saw many empty spaces among them. Slynd made a soft sound. Kalessa froze, then drooped all the way to the ground. Her voice fell to a whisper. “All of them?”

Xanda touched Kalessa's face again. “Oh, my little princess wyrm. We wanted to send word but did not know how to reach you, or if it would get past the Fae. I am the chief of the Third Nest, and you are my sole heir.”

A long moment of silence hung in the air. The campfires snapped, and insects chirped in the grass. Then Kalessa threw back her horned head and bellowed to the sky. The sound was agony given its own form, purified sorrow and anger in one long scream. Tears gathered behind Danr's eyes to hear it. Kalessa's grief roar grew louder and louder until Danr and the others clapped their hands over their ears. Kalessa's body writhed and thrashed, forcing Danr, Aisa, and Xanda to leap back. To Danr's shock, she started to glow. The glow intensified, coruscated across her body, combining with her roar to pound the air with thunder and lightning. A great flash seared Danr's eyes with pain. He buried his face in his hands, but he could still see the awful light.

It ended. The silence returned, but it took several
moments for Danr's eyes to clear and the pain spike to leave his head. When it did, he found he was standing a few paces away from Kalessa. She lay naked on her side on the ground. Tears streamed from her eyes.

“Daughter!” Xanda helped her up. Another orc flung a blanket around her. Kalessa blinked and stretched out her hands beneath the blanket.

“I have . . . changed,” she said in a bewildered voice. It sounded so strange to hear her normal tones after weeks of the hissing rumble of the wyrm.

Xanda gathered her daughter into her arms, and the two of them wept the heavy tears of their Nest while all around them the other orcs raised their arms and shouted defiance to the stars. Danr joined them, and after a moment, so did Aisa. Danr didn't know or care if anyone heard. They bellowed their outrage to the Nine, to the Gardeners, and to Death herself. The release brought him both a feeling of power and of weak relief.

When the noise finally subsided, Xanda guided Kalessa to one of the fires while two orcs brought food and drink. Danr and Aisa joined them.

“Mother,” Kalessa said, “what happened?”

“It was the box,” Xanda said, and her words put a black hole in Danr's heart. “The Fae wanted it. Why, we do not know. They attacked us at the breeding grounds during incubation, before the wyrmlings came out of the ground. They Twisted in and caught us by complete surprise. Our iron usually stops the Fae from Twisting through our lands.”

Aisa said, “Queen Gwylph is drawing on the power of a Gardener these days, and the Gardeners are not bound by the Fae weakness for iron.” She gave a quick explanation.

Xanda's face hardened. “The elven queen attacked us with an army of . . . men. But they were not men. They did not show pain or fear when weapons struck them. The sprites, fairies, and elves who came with them hung back until the strange men had wounded or killed enough of us,
and then they all went for your father and brothers. Our family fought as bravely as an army of a thousand orcs, but in the end, it was too much. I saw him fall from a distance, and could do nothing. A sprite flicked into his tent and emerged with the box Danr had given him, and the moment it did so, they set fire to grasslands and retreated. They burned it all and set patrols to hold the land. I later learned that the other Nests were attacked as well, damaged or even destroyed. The worst of it is the loss of the breeding grounds. All the wyrmlings were killed in the fire, and we lost many adult wyrms in the attacks.”

“Wyrms do not mate every year,” Kalessa explained sadly to Danr and Aisa. “And when they do, it is lucky if they lay more than a single egg. It will take decades to recover.”

“I am very sorry all this happened,” Aisa said. “It is a crime, and it shows how far Queen Gwylph's corruption has gone. She no longer cares about anyone but herself, no goals but her own. We must—”

Danr burst out, “It was my fault. Everything that happened here was my fault.”

“Was it?” Xanda turned to look at him with narrow golden eyes.

“A strange thing for a truth-teller to say,” said Kalessa.

“It's true,” Danr said, trying not to choke. “I left the box with Chief Hess. If I hadn't done that, none of this would have happened.”

“Oh,” said Aisa. “Hamzu, you—”

“If we are going to go that route,” Xanda interrupted, “we may as well blame the dwarfs for creating the box in the first place. Or Queen Vesha for giving the box to you. Or my husband for agreeing to keep the box.” Her voice hardened. “Do not blame yourself, boy. That trail is for weak-hearted fools. The person to blame is the one who sent that army here—Queen Gwylph herself. I want to watch my own wyrm bite her head off and swallow it while she still screams.”

There was a moment of silence broken only by the soft crackle of the campfire. At last, Aisa said, “I can see where Kalessa got her way with words.”

Xanda snorted. “We need to decide what to do next.”

“You are a chieftain among the orcs now,” Aisa said, “is that right?”

“I am chieftain of the Third Nest,” Xanda replied with a nod.

“Could you call the orcs up to war?” Aisa asked. “Again?”

“Now?” Xanda sighed. “Normally, the orcs would happily go to war against the Fae, but they have hurt us badly. Morale among the tribes is low, and my status as chieftain of the Third Nest is new. I do not think all the tribes would listen to me.”

A thought came to Danr. “Kalessa,” he said slowly, “can you take the wyrm shape back again?”

“I . . . do not know,” Kalessa said while Slynd writhed in the darkness behind her.

“The old legends say the orcs have a strong connection to the wyrms,” Danr said. “Orcs became wyrms, wyrms became orcs. Orcs were even able to see into the minds of their wyrms. Now that the power of the shape has returned, Kalessa, maybe you can bring all that back to the orcs, starting now.”

“Slynd?” Kalessa turned and her wyrm slid forward with his chin on the ground. Kalessa put an arm around his massive head. “Can you feel what I think? Can you see into Mother's mind?”

Slynd's tongue flicked the air and his golden eyes reflected the fire. Otherwise he gave no response.

“Try it,” said Aisa. “Welk did it. I am sure you can. Use Slynd. Touch his scales. You need only remember what it was to be a wyrm and you can become one again.”

“Hmm.” Kalessa closed her eyes and ran her hands over Slynd's head. A long moment passed, and Danr held his breath. “I feel something, but it is faint. Not powerful enough to use.”

“Here, sister.” Aisa slashed her palm with Kalessa's blade and held it out to Kalessa. “I do not know why this did not occur to me before.”

Without hesitation, Kalessa swiped up a few drops with her fingertips and let them fall onto her tongue. Danr gave an inward wince. No matter how often he shared blood or watched Aisa do it, the process still put him off.

Xanda watched in fascination. “What is happening?”

“Danr and I are shape mages,” Aisa said. “We shared blood with Grandfather Wyrm himself, and that unlocked our own ability to change form. Anyone else who has a latent ability for the same can find it if they share our blood, or the blood of someone else whose power has been wakened. But there is a price. If Kalessa changes form after she takes my blood, she will be able to draw magical strength from me.”

Xanda sucked at her teeth. “This would create a powerful bond in a tribe! Shared blood that allows a tribe to share strength and shape! I cannot imagine.”

Kalessa, meanwhile, had closed her eyes. Slynd rubbed his head against her like a cat asking for its ears to be scratched. “The feeling is stronger now,” she said, “but still I can do nothing with it.”

On impulse, Danr closed his right eye and looked at her with his left. Kalessa . . . changed. She was still herself, but also standing in her place was a great wyrm, the powerful wyrm whose shape she had worn for the last several weeks. Kalessa and the wyrm were the same in much the way Danr's half-troll and fully human forms were the same. The wyrm, however, writhed behind a wall inside her, unable to get out. Kalessa was calling to the wyrm, and so was Aisa's blood within Kalessa, and the wyrm tried mightily to squirm through the barrier, but still it could not get out. It flicked its tongue in anger.

Anger. Hmm. Danr ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth.
I'm sorry, Kalessa.

“Your father is dead, Kalessa,” he said. “Maybe if you'd
been here, he would be alive. And your brothers, too. Instead you threw in with a half troll, a human slave, and a
Fae
. What kind of daughter does that?”