The Dawn Star (32 page)

D
rummer knew what had happened before he saw it. The shouts, the clank of mail, the scream of men and horses—it roared in the parched morning air. He was too late, too late, Cobalt had already gone to war.

Drummer rode through jagged formations, the lowest foothills of the range that towered behind him. He came around a thicket of rock spires and reined to an abrupt stop before a nightmare. The same Rocklands that had almost killed him were host now to the deaths of hundreds. Men churned across the plains as far as he could see to the north, west, and south. They wore the armor of Quaazera, Onyx, Chamberlight, but nowhere did he see Dawnfield, which meant that either Windcrier had never reached the Aronsdale army or else King Jarid had refused the treaty.

He clenched the reins. Cobalt shouldn't be in combat, but Drummer had no doubt he was out there, wreaking havoc on anyone unfortunate enough to come within reach of his inhuman speed and strength. Drummer doubted he could reach the Aronsdale army now. He couldn't go around a battle this extended. Nor could he ride through; with neither weapons nor training, he would be slaughtered within moments. If he could have reached Cobalt last night, his plan might have prevented all this, but now it was too late.

He had to do something.
But what?
He knew the tales, that Mel had stopped the Shazire battle with her magecraft, wielding what many believed had been an ensorcelled sword of fire. He also knew the truth she had told almost no one else; she had created no more than light. Anyone could have killed her had they had dared to try. No one had gone near her, but that had been at twilight, when the battle was essentially over. This was the heat of the morning and the first blast of hostilities, and no sword of light was going to stop this insanity.

Drummer retreated into the forest of rock spires. He had an idea, but he would be vulnerable, easily killed, undefended while he concentrated. He needed a vantage point where he could see the battle but not be seen, where he could create magic unlike anything he had ever tried, probably beyond his ability, but for his child and the wife he might never see again, he had to try.

He rode deeper into the spires until he was picking his way up a shallow slope with outcroppings jutting around him. He found a cave above the fighting. He led the horse to the back of the cave and rubbed it down, then left it to nibble at grass growing out of cracks in the rock. After he removed his armor, he took his saddlebags to the mouth of the cave.

He could see the fighting from here, but he had to be careful. A sheer drop-off fell from the mouth of the cave. If he exhausted himself, he might lose his balance and slip, roll or topple over the edge. Settling cross-legged at the mouth, he gazed out across the Rocklands. From this high, the battle looked even worse, for he could see the full extent of the carnage. He felt ill and wondered how Ozar could consider killing a more noble purpose than music.

Drummer set the cube on the ground. When he tried to settle the glittar in his lap, he was so tense, he nearly snapped one of the strings. He felt foolish and ineffectual, trying to stop one of the worst battles in history with a harp. He played a few notes and focused on the cube. Almost immediately, he realized he had too little strength to create a green spell substantial enough to influence the soldiers in any significant numbers. He might convince a few men to stop fighting, but that would only get them killed. He had to work with red, orange, and yellow spells, which meant he could make light and heat, and he could soothe but not heal. The lower the color level, the greater the spell he could make.

He closed his eyes and centered his spirit, seeking whatever resources gave creativity to his spells. When he opened his eyes, a gold haze surrounded him, and he saw the combat below through a curtain of light.

He began to play.

The music came from an inner place he had never drawn on before, a well of depth and sorrow. The notes saturated the air as if they were liquid, and they wept with grief. He tried to enlarge his spell to cover the battle, but it was so hard, a strain so far beyond what he had ever done that he wondered at his audacity to believe he could do anything at all with it—except fail.

But he kept playing.

Jade stood on the balcony of the citadel and watched the battle with horror. Her army, her people, her country: All would suffer from this insanity. Baz, Spearcaster, Firaz, Slate, so many others—would this be their last day of life? Just a little longer, and her marriage might have established stability in the settled lands. All that was gone, and she would never see her husband again, not even at the tribunal, for Ozar would never allow it, afraid she might change her mind.

The Aronsdale army had marched to the border, but no farther. They gave no indication they intended to join any army. The cavalry had indeed arrived at the last minute, but they didn't intend to fight.

Jade put her hand on her abdomen, and tears wet her face.

Mel slid down the slope, bringing a miniature avalanche with her. She could see the battle raging. Her chest heaved with exertion, and her hands scraped the ground and sent pebbles cascading away from her body. The slopes she had to traverse were no longer sheer, but the broken land hampered her until she thought she would shout her frustration to the sky—or at the commanders who had started this saints-forsaken war. If she were lucky, she would reach the Rocklands before the father of her child destroyed three countries.

Jason Windcrier huddled in the tent, chained to a pole. The Jazidian soldiers who had caught him called him a spy. They had beaten and starved him, and they threatened to throw him on Ozar's mercy when they had a chance. When they were done with him.

This morning they had vanished, leaving him for the first time since they had caught him two days ago. He had struggled since then with the manacles that chained him to the post. He was a strong man, hale and hearty, but the chains held him well. Finally he managed to yank the post out of the ground and collapse the tent. He staggered to his feet and fought his way out from under the canvas. A chain hung from his wrist manacles, but he was free.

He found himself on a mass of rock the height of a tower. To the south and east, the battle raged. To the west, the Aronsdale army watched, rank upon rank of their soldiers in the polygon formations adopted by Dawnfield armies, shapes their mages could use during combat to aid the army with their spells.

Jason climbed laboriously down to the ground. He was leaving a trail, he knew, but he no longer cared. By the time his captors returned, if they survived, he would have reached his goal—or died trying.

With his wrists still manacled, Jason Windcrier ran for the Aronsdale army.

Cobalt recognized Baz Quaazera by his magnificent armor and dragon helmet, which shone gold in the harsh sunlight. The prince was surrounded by his officers as they cut a swath through the battle. The Midnight King urged his horse forward.

Cobalt fought like a man possessed, for he was crazed, overcome with hatred for the monsters who had brutalized his wife. He cut down Baz's officers quickly. He acted on instinct, swinging, striking, dodging with a rhythm so natural he was barely aware of his actions. Then he was facing Baz, and for the first time he met a foe who challenged him. They fought on horseback, Cobalt with his straight sword, Baz with his curved blade. Every time Cobalt drove him back, Baz surged forward. He came in too close for Cobalt to effectively use his long sword, and their blades clanged together. He and Baz ended up alongside each other, their horses facing in opposite directions, agitated by the proximity, Baz's sword hooked around Cobalt's weapon.

“Your wife isn't in Taka Mal!” Baz told him, furious.

“Liar.” Cobalt strained to break their lock. The ring with Mel's clothes had roused his suspicion of Jazid, but it didn't matter: Taka Mal and Jazid fought together. The battle fury was on him, and he saw no differences in his foes, only enemies.

“Escar, listen!” Baz said. “Ozar set it up. Kaj lied for him because Ozar paid Kaj's gambling debts.”

Cobalt finally managed to break their impasse. He shoved Baz away and brought up his sword.

But he remembered the ring in Mel's clothes.

“He wanted to force concessions from Vizarana,” Baz said, his chest heaving with exertion.

Cobalt went at him with a hard swing, but Baz parried and drove him back.

“Damn it, Escar!” Baz shouted. “Ozar is the one who killed your wife. Not me.” Intent on his words, he lost his momentum and his defense faltered, just for an instant—but it was all the opening Cobalt needed. He swung his sword in the perfect arc to exploit his foe's exposed neck. One blow, and Baz would die.

But—the ring.

Cobalt pulled his strike and just sat on his horse, heaving in breaths. Baz froze in mid-swing, staring at him, his eyes barely visible behind the faceplate of his helmet. Then he lowered his sword, only a bit, but enough.

“You tortured Drummer,” Cobalt said. “That's why you wouldn't let me see him.”

“Drummer is Ozar's hostage.”

“You're hiding something.”

“I'm telling you the truth,” Baz said. “Drummer is a hostage to force
Vizarana's
behavior.” In a voice full of pain, Baz said, “She only treated Drummer the way women have been torturing men since the beginning of time. She gave him her love.”

Cobalt couldn't stop fighting; he was like a machine that once started had to finish. He was literally shaking from his efforts to contain his murderous rage. But all his talking with the Taka Mal envoys these past few days, with Fieldson, with Matthew, with Cragland, even with Baz, it all kept pointing in the same direction, away from Taka Mal and toward Jazid.

With a jerk on the reins, Cobalt wheeled Admiral around and set off across the field—leaving Baz alive. Admiral's hooves pounded the rocky ground. The fighting was sparser here, and he encountered fewer soldiers. He struck down those who attacked him and raced past those who fled, galloping toward the Jazidian command post on a plateau above the battlefield.

Cobalt couldn't have said how long it took to cross the battlefield. The fighting went in slow motion. Aeons passed in an instant. Yet almost as soon as he started, he was reining Admiral to a stop below the command center. He rode up the trail to the plateau, and Admiral neighed in challenge as they approached the guards at the top. Cobalt shouted across the open area to the tent on the other side. “Onyx! Come out!”

Warriors blocked his way, eight men in armor and helmets, black plumes restless in the wind. A man exited the tent, an officer of high rank judging from the braid on his uniform. He took one look at Cobalt and disappeared back inside. With the Jazidian guards as his escort, Cobalt rode Admiral across the plateau. This place wasn't for battle. The ancient codes of war decreed such a post an area of truce where one commander could approach another to confer or surrender. No one could come up here to interfere, neither Cobalt's men nor any more from Ozar's army. If Cobalt violated that code, these guards could kill him with impunity. However, they were in full view of the battlefield, which meant they couldn't violate the code, either; if they did, Cobalt's men would sweep over this post.

“I will speak to Onyx.” Cobalt's voice rumbled.

One of the men came forward with careful respect. “You must first relinquish your sword.”

Cobalt had no intention of relinquishing anything. He kept his weapon gripped in his hand. “I come to see your atajazid.”

“Do you wish to surrender?” the man asked.

“I will speak to
Onyx,
” Cobalt said. “Not to you. Not to Quaazera. Not even to your damned Shadow Dragon.”

The officer stiffened at the insult to the dragon, and for a moment it seemed he would challenge Cobalt. Then he spun around and strode into the tent. The others remained outside, hands on their sword hilts.

Ozar didn't come out of the tent. Instead, he rode from behind it on a magnificent charger. He sat as tall in the saddle as Cobalt, and his shoulders were almost as broad in his armor. The stones in the hilt of his monstrous sword were black.

Onyx.

Ozar spoke coldly. “You come here armed to kill.”

“You kidnapped my wife,” Cobalt said.

The atajazid answered with scorn. “It is not my problem if you cannot keep track of your wife.”

Cobalt gritted his teeth. Stonebreaker used to talk to him that way, full of ridicule for the grandson he subjected to so much pain, physical and emotional. It had filled Cobalt with a rage that had driven him to pound his fists against the stone blocks of a tower until his shredded skin dripped with blood.

“You took my wife.” The storm built within Cobalt. He had to know the truth. “You whipped her to death.”

Ozar considered him. Only his eyes showed through his helmet. The distant roar of combat echoed below them, and Ozar's warriors stood back, watching.

The atajazid spoke with deliberate, calculated malice. “She did have a beautiful body. I'd never seen yellow hair in a woman's crotch. And those breasts. Although they were less attractive with blood all over them.”