Shadows of Moth (21 page)

"Arrows!"
Neekeya shouted.

Heart pounding
against her ribs, she loosed her arrow. The projectile sailed toward
a howdah and slammed into a Nayan archer within. The man clutched his
chest, crashed out of the howdah, and fell off the elephant. The
beast, wounded and enraged, stepped on the man in its confusion,
crushing him. More Daenorian arrows sailed downward and slammed into
the enemy. The arrowheads were smeared with the venom of the
marshlands' golden frogs; just a drop was enough to still a man's
heart.

Dozens, maybe
hundreds of bodies littered the mountain path.

The enemies shouted
below. Nayan commanders barked orders from atop elephants, pointing
spears at the Daenorians' locations. Magerians mustered alongside the
path, drew swords, and began to march upwards, shields held before
them.

"Fire!"
Neekeya shouted, hoarse. "Shoot them down!"

She fired another
arrow. Her fellow soldiers fired with her. Some of the projectiles
slammed into the elephants, enraging the beasts. Other arrows slammed
into enemy soldiers; some snapped against armor but many sank into
flesh.

With battle cries,
the Nayan troops fired their own arrows.

Neekeya crouched
behind another boulder, this one deeply embedded into the
mountainside. Arrows crashed against the stone and clattered around
her. At her side, Tam fired an arrow, then crouched and raised his
shield above his head.

"Slay them!"
a man cried below, speaking in the language of Mageria. "Archers,
fire!"

Whistles filled the
air. Arrows sailed upwards, glinted in the sun, then came falling
like comets. Neekeya grunted and raised her shield overhead. Three
arrows punched through the wood, emerging only an inch away from her
head. Another arrow scratched along her thigh, tearing her skin, and
she grunted. Around her, hundreds of arrows peppered the
landscape—clattering against stone, piercing shields, and some
shedding blood. One Daenorian took an arrow to the neck; he gave a
strangled cry and tumbled down the mountainside.

Neekeya stood up,
her shield bristly with arrows, and raised her sword over her head.
"Daenor—attack!"

Her army—thousands
of swamp warriors, roaring through their crocodile helms—swept down
the mountainside, swinging their swords.

The battle exploded
with a clash of steel and showers of blood.

A rainforest
warrior lunged toward Neekeya, and she raised her shield, blocking
the swipe of his scimitar. She shoved against her shield, pushing the
man down. He tripped on the rocky slope, crashed onto his back, and
Neekeya swung down her sword. The blade cracked open his iron
breastplate. She swung again, the breastplate shattered, and blood
sprayed the man's red beard and braided hair.

Two more warriors
leaped toward Neekeya. She swung her blade in a wide arc, parrying
both men's scimitars. She thrust her shield in one direction,
knocking one man down the mountain, and her sword in the other,
piercing the second man's neck. Both soldiers tumbled down and
knocked against their climbing brethren. Neekeya roared with fury,
blood on her armor, fear and rage consuming her.

"Turn back,
Radians!" she shouted, voice echoing across the battle. "Turn
back or this mountain will be your graveyard."

Yet thousands were
still climbing. An elephant's corpse lay before her, and she scuttled
onto the dead animal to survey the battlefield below. She felt the
blood drain from her cheeks.

"By Cetela,"
she whispered.

Most of the enemy
host was still snaking up the mountainside. There were tens of
thousands: Nayans in tiger pelts, Magerians in black armor, and
further back marched Eseerians—desert warriors clad in white tunics,
bearing sickle-shaped swords. The army was so massive it snaked down
to the misty valleys.

This was not only a
host to carve a path through the mountains. Neekeya grimaced. Here
was a host to overwhelm all of Daenor and send the pyramids crumbling
down.

Tigers raced up the
mountainside, free of their leashes. Neekeya sneered. One of the
animals pounced toward her, and she held out her shield. Its weight
slammed her down. She tumbled off the dead elephant, the tiger
clawing at her shield.

"Neekeya!"

A cloak fluttered.
Metal flashed. Tam leaped forward, and his shield drove against the
tiger, shoving the beast off. Neekeya rose to her feet and swung her
sword in arcs, holding the animal back. Tam spared her only a glance
before a Nayan warrior raced his way, thrusting a spear. The prince
of Arden cried out, swung his sword, and parried.

"Crocodiles!"
Neekeya shouted to the Daenorians who stood farther up the mountain.
"Send out the beasts!"

Upon the mountains,
Daenorians in gray robes pulled blankets off concealed cages. They
unlocked the cage doors, and dozens of famished and furious
crocodiles raced down the mountainside, jaws snapping. The reptiles,
trained to avoid the soldiers of Daenor, ran toward the battle and
drove through the enemy lines.

The battle raged
on.

Neekeya fought with
fury, sometimes slaying men with her sword, other times casting
forward blasts of magic, using the powers she had learned at Teel.
Always Tam fought at her side; his sword danced with hers, and his
magic slammed into enemy armor, cracking the steel and breaking the
bones within. All around them, the hosts fought: tigers, elephants,
crocodiles, rainforest warriors, swamp dwellers, and knights in black
steel. An hour into the battle, robed mages joined the fray; they
rode upon black horses, and their blasts of magic tore across the
mountain, sending boulders tumbling down to crush men.

"Do not let a
single man pass!" Neekeya shouted as she fought. "Protect
Daenor!"

Several scales were
missing from her armor. Chips marred her sword. Blood seeped down her
thigh, arm, and forehead. Yet still she fought, refusing to retreat.

At
Teel I was only a weak girl, so afraid, a foreigner for the Radians
to torment.
She roared and swung her sword, cutting men down.
But
now I am a warrior.

"Neekeya!"
Tam shouted. He grabbed her. Blood dripped down his face and covered
his arm. "Neekeya, we can't hold them back."

"We must!"
She slew another man. "Daenor, fight! Hold them back!"

Several Magerian
troops came racing up toward her. She summoned particles from the
air, wove them into three balls, and tossed the projectiles down the
mountainside. The magic crashed against the soldiers' legs, sending
them tumbling down. Desert warriors raced over the fallen, their
white robes flowing, and swung scimitars toward her. Tam and Neekeya
fought side by side, cutting the men down. Yet tens of thousands were
still climbing, and the corpses of Daenorians littered the mountain.

"We've lost
most of our men already!" Tam said. He spat out blood. "We
can't win."

Neekeya trembled
with fear and weakness. "Then I will die with my men! I will not
run." Her eyes burned. "I cannot run."

A man rode up the
mountainside toward them. Enemy troops moved aside, letting him pass.
It was a mage, his robes black and flowing, his face hooded. He
raised a pale, withered hand.

Neekeya growled and
summoned her own magic, weaving a protective field of air. But the
mage was too fast. A bolt of lightning shot from his fingers and
slammed into her armor, and Neekeya screamed and fell.

The lightning raced
across her, raising smoke. She screamed. Tears flowed from her eyes.
She pawed at her armor, struggling to tear it off. Her hair crackled
and she couldn't breathe. Wincing, she saw the mage dismount and walk
toward her, grinning within his hood, driving more of the lightning
into her. Scales on her armor sparked and cracked, and she wept.

"Tam!"
she screamed, but he was writhing at her side, lightning crashing
against him too. He too was screaming.

No.
Not like this. I'm not done killing yet.

Though her body
convulsed, wreathed in lightning, Neekeya manage to stand up. She
stumbled forward and slammed herself against the mage.

The lightning
passed from her to him, and he howled and fell backwards. He crashed
down onto the mountainside, his cloak caught flame, and his magic
died.

Trembling, tears
streaming, Neekeya thrust her blade into him.

Tam struggled to
his feet, coughing, his hair singed and his face sooty.

"Neekeya,"
he managed to say, voice hoarse and weak. "The mountain is lost.
Look around you." He gestured at the dead Daenorians; perhaps
only five hundred remained alive, facing tens of thousands of
enemies. "We must fall back. We'll fight them in the marshlands,
firing arrows down from the trees. That is the true domain of Daenor.
That is where we'll make our last stand."

As men fought
around her, Neekeya gazed across the battle. Her eyes burned with
tears. The best of Daenor had come here—the noblest of her sons and
daughters—and here they had fallen. Here forever their souls would
reside and their glory would whisper in the wind. She knew Tam was
right.

"The mountains
are lost," she whispered. She raised her voice and shouted to
her kinsmen. "The mountains are lost! Fall back, children of
Daenor! Fall back to the marshlands!"

She slew a man who
raced toward her. She screamed as an arrow grazed her cheek, and her
blood dripped. She began to race up the mountain, shouting as she
ran.

"Daenor, fall
back! To the marshlands!"

She
leaped over the bodies of her kinsmen. Their eyes stared at her,
glassy, condemning.
How
dare you leave us here, latani of Eetek? Do not leave us upon the
stone! Return us to the marshes.

Yet she had to
leave them. She raced over the dead, rallying the living around her.
Arrows flew. One slammed into a Daenorian at her side, slaying him—a
mere youth, younger than herself. She kept running.

The last defenders
of Daenor, only several hundred, fled down the western mountainside,
bleeding, shouting, heading down into the swamplands. Behind them
like a rising sun charged the Radian forces, beating drums and
chanting for victory.

 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
SHATTERING

Madori rode through
the darkness, the wind ruffling her hair and Grayhem's fur. She
leaned forward upon the nightwolf, staring south into the shadows.

"Hurry,
Grayhem," she pleaded. "We have to hurry."

The wolf panted but
kept racing across the wilderness. The land was flat and rocky and
black, the great emptiness north of the Inaro River and west of the
Iron Road. The lights of the night sky shone above: the
constellations, a crescent moon, the faded trail of light men called
the White Dragon's Tail, and those moving stars Koyee claimed were
distant worlds, sisters to Moth. But Madori kept waiting to see other
lights—the lights of Pahmey, the great western city of Qaelin, a hub
of life in the darkness of endless night.

She held up her
locket and flicked it open as she rode. As before, it showed nothing.
If Koyee still had her locket, it was closed.

"Stars damn
it, Mother!" Madori cried into the wind. "Where are you?"

She had not seen a
vision in the locket for hours, or maybe it had been full turns now.
The last vision had shown Koyee sailing on a boat of refugees,
heading toward the glass towers of Pahmey. Madori had never been to
that city, but she had seen it painted upon many scrolls: a city of
high walls bedecked with lamps, of glass towers that shone with inner
lights, of domes like the moon, and of floating lanterns. If Serin's
forces had truly driven into the night, would the Elorians meet them
there in battle?

"Keep running,
Grayhem," she said, stroking his fur as he raced across the
land.

Her sword hung
across her back—the blade renamed, no longer Sheytusung but Min Tey,
the glow of the water, for her mind was now like a clear pond
reflecting the moonlight. With the wisdom of Yin Shi, she knew she
could keep her rage and fear under control, could keep her mind clear
even while in danger. She hadn't completed her training in Yin Shi,
as she hadn't completed her training of magic at Teel University, but
she would take all knew of both skills, and she would use them in
battle.

I
will meet you again, Serin,
she swore.
And
this time I will not just cut off your finger but your head. You have
not yet met Min Tey in battle.

She rode on through
the endless night.

She rode for many
turns.

When they were too
tired to continue, Grayhem and she slept under the stars. When they
were hungry, they searched the moist earth for mushrooms and
truffles, and when they raced over rocky plains, they dug for
underground beetles, worms, and rodents, horrid little things that
made Madori queasy but kept her alive. She drank melted snow. She
rode on.

Through the cold
and darkness, a song kept playing in her mind, and soon she was
singing it as she rode, her voice soft. She sang "The Journey
Home," one of the oldest songs of Eloria, the song her mother
had taught her. Koyee had sailed alone upon the Inaro as a youth, and
"Sailing Alone" had become an anthem to her, the song she
had played on the streets and in the glittering burrows of the
yezyani. But Madori, torn between day and night, always seeking a
home, had another song to her heart, and in the darkness, seeking
Pahmey, seeking a battle to fight, seeking a home, her voice rang
with her song and filled the night.

Ten turns after
leaving Master Lan Tao in the northern Desolation, Madori finally saw
the lights of Pahmey ahead.

Upon a hilltop, she
halted her nightwolf and gasped, staring at the distant city.

Pahmey rose upon
the northern bank of the silver Inaro River. Black walls surrounded
the city, topped with many lanterns. Beyond the walls, Madori saw
thousands of homes built of opaque glass bricks, their roofs riled
red, green, and gold, their edges curling upwards like scrolls. Many
pagodas rose among the houses, dragon statues atop their
roofs—temples to Xen Qae and to the constellations. At the city's
crest, glass towers rose toward the sky, and they shone with inner
lights of silver, lavender, and blue. The greatest tower among
them—Minlao Palace—supported a silver dome shaped like the moon.
Even higher up, hot air balloons hovered in the sky between floating
lanterns.