The Realms of the Gods (24 page)

“You get into so much trouble without me to look after you,” she whispered.

He kissed her forehead. “You belong in Legann. Make sure that Jonathan understands what Gainel told us. It's not the kind of thing we can trust to a letter or speech spell. He's
got
to see that it's vital to capture or kill Uusoae's pawn, Valmar of the Copper Isles. Diamondflame says he'll get Deniau of the Copper Isles when his fleet reaches Legann.” He sighed, staring into the dark with troubled eyes. “And we'll just have to hope she is drawing on those two or Inar Hadensra, or Ozorne, not one of the other immortals that were in our dream, because we have no way to identify them.”

Daine threw her arms around the man's neck. They kissed with hunger and desperation, holding each other tight. Jelly shrilled in protest; they ignored the darking.

Slowly, at last, she opened her arms, and Numair let her slide to the deck. “I love you,” he whispered. “If you get yourself killed, I will
never
forgive you.”

That got a laugh from her, albeit a wet one. Numair offered his handkerchief. “You'll need it,” she said, and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.

“Something else.” Reaching into his shirt, he pulled Jelly out. “We talked about this,” he told the darking firmly. “You'll be much better off with Daine and Leaf.”

The darking stretched its neck long until it could rub its head against his cheek, then retracted until it was a small blob once more. Daine turned. The mage tucked the darking into the compartment of the pack where Leaf already waited.

—If these touching farewells are done with?—
Diamondflame hovered effortlessly beside the ship.
They hadn't even heard his approach.
—We too must be on our way.—

Daine and Numair exchanged a last, swift kiss, before the girl climbed onto the rail. Numair steadied her until Diamondflame's magic hands picked her up and deposited her on his back. They began to rise. Daine looked at Numair and blew him a kiss, trying to ignore an inner voice that said she would probably never see him again.

Light sparkled at the corner of her eye: a speaking spell. Phantom lips touched her cheek, and his voice whispered in her ear, “Goddess bless, my darling.”

Two days later, in the hour before sunrise, the girl stood on Legann's Northgate watchtower. She knew what lay in the shadows below. Yesterday, as the queen's army advanced, she had mapped battlefields and camps, riding on Diamondflame's back, with his magic to keep them invisible. Copies of her maps went both to the city's defenders and to Thayet, borne by Wingstar. Now the Tortallan rulers knew their opponents' every position. The queen and her forces waited at the forest's edge. It was nearly time to ford the river between them and their enemies, time to begin the day's grim work.

The image of the land before her was etched into her brain. A swath of torn-up ground hundreds of yards wide lay before Legann's outer wall, littered with bodies that had begun to swell, blacken, and stink in the summer heat. With them lay abandoned weapons; shattered spears, arrows, and pikes; stones from Legann's catapults; and wide, scorched gouges where the war mages had battled.

Farther back, out of catapult range, Ozorne's allies had set their defenses. The first of these was a row of logs roped together in X's, their outer ends sharpened to gut any horse that tried to leap over them. Next came lines of trenches, designed to break the legs of horses and
men that managed to get through the log fence, and to shelter the enemy's soldiers when arrows were flying. The third barrier was a low, rounded earthen wall. Behind that lay the main enemy camp itself, in a low valley with a river cutting through.

She'd mapped the positions of everything out there. As the light improved, she saw the shadowy forms of sentries on top of the low earth wall, just as she could see the tall, wooden towers that the enemy used as lookout posts. If the defenders ever let those towers get close enough, they would also give Ozorne's allies a way to reach the top of Legann's curtain wall.

Shivering, the girl drew the blanket that—with the badger's claw—was her only covering even closer. Beside her, Dominion Jewel in one hand, a speech-and-vision-spelled mirror in the other, was King Jonathan. With the mirror, he was in contact with his queen. His generals had such mirrors, too, to pass news to him more quickly than runners could.

“Are you sure you ought to be here?” Onua, Daine's first Tortallan friend, asked the king. She had come to Legann while Numair and Daine were in the Divine Realms, and had reserved the right to stick to the king's side. “It's foolish to risk yourself out in the open. If one lucky Stormwing slashes you, I'm left to tell Thayet why I let you do this.”

“I distrust any advice that contains the words
ought
or
should
,” he replied coolly. “And I can't wield the Dominion Jewel from inside, Onua. I have to see where I use it.”

Daine leaned forward and mouthed “I told you so” to Onua. The K'mir smiled, wry. She hadn't really expected Jonathan to take her advice.

Kitten chirped to Daine. The girl awkwardly stooped, clutching her blanket, and used one arm to lift the dragonet into a rectangular notch in the wall. The sky over the hills in the east had gone pink.

In the wide, flat space inside the wall behind the king, light bent as Diamondflame moved. The tower guards couldn't see him, but they
felt
him, and walked, when they had to, pressed against the wall. The dragon's invisibility was less of a problem for his allies than visibility. Not only did it keep him from the notice of the enemy's spies, but at the few times that he
had
appeared, there had been panic in the city.

Hearing the clank of armor, Daine looked around. Lord Imrah, ruler of the fief of Legann, had reached the tower roof. He was no more able to see the dragon than his men, but he knew Diamondflame was there, and at least he did not press against the wall and sidle along. He walked as if he would normally follow the edge of the circular deck, rather than cut straight across it. Daine, with her hands on Kitten, could see that Diamondflame moved his tail out of the nobleman's way.

The girl made room so that Imrah could stand next to the king; the lord nodded his thanks. At first she had not liked this bald, large-bellied man. With his pale eyes and pock-marked face, he looked cruel. The night before, at supper with Jonathan and his leaders, though, she had caught Legann's master feeding Leaf, Jelly, and the Legann darkings under the table. “Well, they look like shadows of their former selves,” he'd said then, and winked.

Now he smoothed his salt-and-pepper mustache. “Almost time, isn't it?”

“We'll get the queen's signal at any moment,” Jonathan murmured, watching the view to the north. Shadows and light began to mark the landscape, outlining structures and the dead.

“I hope these Yamanis can handle those ships blockading my harbor,” Imrah said to no one in particular. “They seem pretty confident they can handle them and that fleet from the Copper Isles.”

—It will not be Yamanis alone,—
Diamondflame said,
mind voice crisp.
—Do you but handle your side of this mess. Leave ship warriors to those who can best handle them.—

“I think your daughter Flamewing believed she could handle ship things, too,” Daine said, shivering. “And they handled
her
instead.” She smiled briefly at Tkaa, who had come to join them.

—She was barely more than a kit,—
the invisible dragon said kindly.
—You will see. It is rare for adult dragons to be caught.—

The sun's rim crested the eastern hills. To the north, beyond the enemy's defenses, light sparked.

Kitten chirped. “Wingstar is in flight,” Tkaa said. Like Daine, he rested a paw on Kitten, or neither of them could have seen a thing. Dragons, apparently, could not hide from one another, and those close enough to a dragon to touch it would see what the dragon saw.

Imrah scratched his bald crown. Jonathan drew a deep breath. Daine watched that spark as it rose and grew bigger.

Before Wingstar reached the agreed-upon position, the girl silently called out to her friends among the People. The enemy had gotten careless in the time that she was away. Ozorne must have told his allies that she had gone: They had resumed tethering their mounts with rope and leather, and leaving them unwatched. Now that Ozorne had no darkings to supply him with information—they had all gone over to the badger and Gold-streak—he didn't know that Daine was back.

Steadying the enemy's horses and mules, Daine warned them again of the fright to come. The mounts shifted at her request, stretching their tethers to the limit.

High above the enemy's main camp, placed so that she could also be seen from Legann's walls, the dragon shed the spells that kept her invisible. Stretching out her long neck, she gave a feral shriek that brought sweat to the face of everyone who heard it. Pearl-gray scales blazed silver. Gold scales flared with a brilliance that was
the essence of light. Wingstar was a living beacon over the enemy tents.

Even with Daine's warning, the mounts were terrified. They reared and lunged—and each rope and strap, carefully gnawed in the dark by sharp-toothed rodents, snapped. In a thunder of hooves, mules, ponies, and horses fled as soldiers jumped out of the way.

On the wall, Kitten replied to Wingstar with a trill that made Daine's ears hurt. The crenelated granite walls of Legann had been capped with pale gray stones. These now shimmered and glowed, throwing off light, but no heat.

—She is so much more advanced than our young at home,
—remarked Diamondflame as he rose onto his hindquarters.
—Perhaps more of them should spend time here.—
He launched himself, giant wings pulling him aloft. Daine, Kitten, and Tkaa followed his flight; the other two-leggers were staggering in his back draft, fighting to recover their balance.

“I wish we had a sign that this flaming dragon was part of an
attack
or something,” Imrah grumbled. “Those dung heaps might think it's just one of their
own
monsters enjoying the sunrise.”

Diamondflame reached the sky over Legann harbor before he shed his cloaking spells. Before him lay the ships of the invading fleet, balked by the harbor's defenders and the chain across its mouth. Daine couldn't begin to imagine how the enemy—or even Legann's friends—felt at the sight of eighty feet of dragon, overhead. Diamondflame snarled: Sails burst into flame. Wingstar too snarled. The sharpened logs in front of the trenches and the wooden towers behind the enemy's earth wall began to burn.

“Is that enough sign of an attack for you, my lord?” the king asked.

Imrah of Legann was a deliberate man. He walked over to get a better view of the harbor and its blockaders.
The sailors were scrambling to douse their flaming ships as first Diamondflame, then Wingstar, descended on them, howling with fury. Legann's master returned to Jonathan's side. “It'll do,” he said, reseating his helmet on his armored hip. With a half-bow to the king, he began the climb from the watchtower to the ground.

Onua checked the fit of her arm guards and archer's gloves, and strung her bow.

Daine shifted nervously; she hated waiting for an enemy to come at her. “You stay right there, and don't move,” she warned the pale blue dragonet. “If you tumble out, your grandda will cook me—once he and your grandma finish with the enemy's ships, anyway.” Kitten chuckled and rubbed her muzzle against the girl's face. Leaf, who was coiled around Daine's neck, squeaked a protest.

Her mind filled with a metallic roar, a shrill hum, and a rattling buzz. Damping her magical hearing as far as she dared, she told her companions, “They're coming.”

The K'mir leaned out of the notch in front of her and waved her bow. From the wall below the tower, a familiar voice boomed, “That's the signal, lambkins—string your bows! Wake
up,
Master Wooley! Stormwings don't wait till you've finished your beauty sleep!” The hectoring voice faded as Sarge, the ex-slave who helped to train the Queen's Riders—and who fought with them—urged Legann's archers to prepare for the assault.

Daine, stretching the cramped muscles of her neck, smiled at the familiar roar that had woken her on so many days in the Rider barracks. She sent a prayer to the Goddess to shield him and his charges: Half of the archers on Legann's walls were as young or younger than she was, teenagers chosen for their precise eye and ability to hit what they shot at.

They needed prayer. Winged legions rose from the second enemy camp to the northeast. Sunlight blazed from Stormwing feathers, and glinted on the silver bones
of hurrok wings and claws. With them flew winged apes armed with lances or axes.

At least there were no wyverns. Diamondflame had already told the king that they had sensed the arrival of mature dragons and fled. Though they had been willing to fight on with only a single, very young, dragon to oppose them, they dared not try to challenge her grandparents.