Offspring (The Sword of the Dragon) (45 page)

A murmur passed through the air as she approached. The men pointed to the viper on her arm and whispered to one another. Ilfedo glanced at her arm. “Well, my dear. You have worked another miracle overnight.” He smiled and patted her shoulder. “If your little friend is comfortable, let’s get down to business.”

“Psst! Mistress, I don’t like being called ‘little.’” The viper raised its head in disdain and eyed Ilfedo. “Psst! Psst! Psst!”

But Ilfedo did not seem to hear the creature. He addressed those assembled and introduced Vectra. “Please welcome our ally, Vectra, ruler of Resgeria.”

“Men of the Hemmed Land,” Vectra growled. “Let your enemies be mine, and mine yours. I have brought a force strong enough to search out and discover your enemy. We will repay them for all the harm they have done to you.” She held up her hand, and her claws emerged from the fingers.

The counselors raised their hands and cheered.

Vectra gazed upon Oganna. “Your father informed me of your decision to accompany us. All I can say is, I will be honored to have you by my side.”

“Psst! What’s this?” the viper hissed. It twisted its head around in order to see the megatrath from head to tail. “Big, bad, ugly, scaled—”

“Shush, Neneila.” Oganna tapped the little creature’s head and glanced at Vectra, hoping no insult had been perceived.

“Look who’s talking,” the megatrath grunted. “A tiny, insignificant, beady-eyed—”

The viper slipped its tongue in and out of its mouth and showed its fangs. “Psst!” Venom glittered on its fangs. “I am also
poisonous
. Sssince I will be traveling with you—treat me with respect.”

“Please, stop, both of you.” Oganna shrugged her shoulders, gazing into Vectra’s face. “Can’t we all get along?”

The megatrath drew back her head and crouched to the earth. “You are right, princess. I shouldn’t let such a small creature bother me.”

“Small! Psst, you rude, fat—”

Oganna clamped her fingers over the viper’s mouth. “No more insults. Okay?” She swung her leg over Vectra’s neck and held on as the creature stood to her full height. She spotted her father. His brow furrowed as if questioning the wisdom of her decision. “Don’t worry, Father. I will be careful.”

Vectra lumbered up to her fellow megatraths and opened her jaws wide, emitting a series of high-pitched shrieks that rolled across the fields until answering calls from the other megatraths filled the morning air and sent shivers up Oganna’s spine. She imagined that the forests and hills of the Hemmed Land continued to ring with the megatraths’ cries, and at the sound the inhabitants fled in fear. The great creatures formed a line with Vectra at its head.

“Hang on to me, Oganna.” Vectra’s body tensed, mighty muscles rippled. “This is going to be a rough ride.”

Like a flood, they raced through the fields and crashed through the forests until they passed out of the Hemmed Land and into the northern desert. They kept up a fierce pace for a couple hours and then slowed whilst Oganna roasted in Yimshi’s rays.

“Ah, this heat feels wonderful.” Vectra rumbled in her throat, and she stretched. “This is more like my land. Except there are far fewer boulders in Resgeria.”

Oganna sneezed as Vectra stirred the sand. “This climate may be all right for you, Vectra. But to me it is stifling!” The viper slithered up her arm and settled around her neck. The collar of her garment provided some shade for its body.

A
fter enduring three days of travel through the boulder-strewn wastes of the northern desert, Oganna felt relieved to see green hills rise from the distant horizon. She dismounted and ran until her feet touched grass, and a tree shaded her. The cooler air kissed her dry skin. A few trees stood out on the grassy rises. She climbed to the crest of the first hill and gazed down the opposite side. A deep blue stream gurgled out of its base and ribboned through the flat landscape.

Leaving her shoes and socks on the stream’s bank, she waded into the gentle current, splashed the water on her face, and washed the dust from her hair.

The megatraths lumbered over the hill, drank of the fresh water, drained the barrels of now-warm water that they had brought with them, and filled them anew. Oganna wrung the liquid from her hair and washed her legs off whilst the viper dropped to the ground and curled up on the stream’s bank. “Psst, Mistress what’s all the fuss?”

Oganna did not answer, instead laughing as she lay back on the grass. The green blades tickled her bare feet, and the ground received her in its soft cushion. The sun was setting in the west. The sky in that direction turned orange and purple. Wispy clouds dotted the sky, each one a different shape.

“We’ll rest here for now.” Vectra sloshed in the stream. “Tomorrow we continue north.”

One by one the megatraths curled beside the stream, and soon their labored breathing filled Oganna’s ears. Vectra brought over a pack and set it by Oganna’s feet. “Goodnight, Princess.”

“Goodnight.” She watched the creature curl up nearby and smiled when Vectra’s snoring reached her ears. The viper slithered under her legs and came up by her side. “Are you ready for sleep too, Neneila?”

The viper stretched its jaws, until the fangs were fully exposed, then yawned.

Oganna pulled her bedroll from the pack, rolled it out, and snuggled into it while the viper curled beside her head and dozed off. Soon she too would fall asleep with the sounds of crickets singing in the night. To her their songs were not mere vibrations wrought in the delicate tapestry of their wings, for she could hear the words. Now, as the crickets sang, she hummed along and repeated their words in her mind:

In the darkness, Netroth’s bell tolls for the dead:

The unavenged slain that once roamed her streets.

They toll for the mighty king that into doom was led,

And the citadel that stands in the wake of his defeats.

Oh, hearken to the pleas of the cities’ murdered inhabitants.

Cry now for children torn from play,

For mothers slain by the corrupted giants,

Weep for the king that should not have lived to see this day.

Will not a champion rise to stay the wizard’s hand?

When will justice be dealt to end his dread?

Who will save this burning land?

Who will rise to deal justice upon the wizard’s head?

It seemed a strange thing for crickets to sing. She whispered their phrases into the night, then closed her eyes and fell asleep.

The next morning Oganna rose with the dawn. The air felt strangely warm for so early an hour. Putting away her bedding, she roused the viper. “I’m going to explore. Do you want to come along?”

“Certainly, Mistress. Psst! I wouldn’t miss this.” It wrapped itself around her outstretched arm and settled its head over her right shoulder.

Oganna walked over the next hill and the next until she came to the top of a rise that stood higher than all the land ahead of her. To her astonishment she saw a vast stretch of rolling hills that extended from the base of the hills on which she stood to a trio of mountains in the distance. Smoke rose from the smoldering ruins of innumerable buildings throughout the region, and geometrically laid out roads converged from the horizon, allowing access to the buildings and a main highway that drew a straight line to the mountains.

A multitude of dead domesticated animals dotted the landscape in dried pools of their own blood. Arrows lay strewn on the ground with broken spears and an occasional sword. She descended the hill and tried to pick up one of the swords by its handle. But it was twice the size of Avenger and at least three times as heavy. She released her hold.

Kneeling next to an arrow, she ran her finger along its shaft. It was as long as a man, and its head dwarfed any she’d ever seen. Not far off lay a spear with a shaft at least sixteen feet long! She stood and walked to the nearest structure, a four-walled home with its roof caved in. The doorway rose five feet higher above her head.

“Oganna!” Vectra’s massive foot splintered the spear. Behind her the other megatraths lumbered over the hills, and suddenly the objects scattered about seemed small.

Vectra picked up the sword and stabbed its blade into the ground. Then she raised the front third of her body and picked up a couple arrows in each hand. The megatrath cracked them in her teeth. “I was worried about you, Princess. You should not wander off alone. This land is foreign. We do not know what creatures inhabit it.”

“I had no idea that there were people living this far north.” Oganna shook her head and gaped at the structure. “Look at this place. It’s as if giants built it.”

“And fought a war here.” Vectra lumbered through the field, picking up various weapons. She lifted a shield and smashed her fist into it. But the shield held, and she pulled back her hand, shaking it and growling.

Vectra hunched down beside Oganna and eyed her quizzically. “Did you imagine that this part of the world would be any less interesting than ours? Take my word for this.” She wiggled her claws at the territory ahead of them. “Subterran is full of other civilizations, some old, some young, some wicked and some good.”

Oganna nodded thoughtfully. “It looks as if someone burned this place out and it
wasn’t
with the consent of the inhabitants. Look at the weapons and livestock. Someone made war on these people.”

“It does look that way.” Vectra kicked another shield aside. “And I have little doubt that this devastation is somehow linked to the viper raids on the Hemmed Land.”

“No doubt.” Oganna walked to the main highway and followed it toward a large hill. Vectra lumbered beside her, a comforting reminder of a mighty ally. Smoke rose from behind the hill, and the point of a spire stabbed at the sky. The highway disappeared over the hilltop. Without warning her companions, she ran to the crest and peered beyond.

In a very deep and wide valley rested the ruins of a mighty city constructed of stone. A wall rose over forty feet high around its perimeter. Streets lined the city in the shape of a sailing ship wheel, with four highways as spokes running from the center to the four gates below the valley’s rim. A wooden archway, inscribed with letters from the ancient alphabet, crowned the nearest gate.

“‘Netroth.’”

Vectra, coming up from behind, caught her breath and laid a restraining hand on Oganna’s shoulders. “Take care, Princess. I have heard of this place. It is a city of the giants. Little bodes well with those creatures, for they are warlike and powerful.”

Oganna couldn’t help smiling at that. “Sounds like another race I know.”

They descended into the valley and passed under the arch into the city. The one hundred megatraths pounded after them. Every footstep resounded through the empty streets, and the air smelled mildly of rotten eggs. Dead animals lay everywhere, and most of the buildings had been burned.

The spire that Oganna had seen belonged to a citadel at the city’s heart. It spiked above the four highways that led to the gates and intersected beneath it. A gargantuan stone ramp appeared to be the only way to enter the structure. This ramp dropped one hundred feet from the citadel entrance to the highway ahead of her and descended on either side of an arch, allowing passage underneath to the rest of the city. Deep chips in the citadel walls and chunks of stone lying around it indicated it had endured bombardment.

Nevertheless, the city itself had fared far worse. Whether that was due to its weaker construction or an enemy’s wrath she could not determine. Oganna felt as if she was walking through a land of ghosts.

She climbed an enormous stone step into one of the houses and gazed at the ceiling rafters ten feet above her head. Spiders crawled over thinly spread webs between the rafters and two beams crossed beneath them for support. It didn’t smell musty, but something putrid made her pinch her nose. She wandered past the kitchen table with two large wooden chairs on either end. A third lay on the floor with a broken leg. An iron stove sat against the one wall. She stood on tip toe to see the stovetop. Burned eggs and bacon filled a pan. And to the side a raw egg had broken on the cooling shelf.