[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (33 page)

“Oh, Hells’ teeth,” I muttered, swearing
rather more than that. “Come on, then, we have to catch Shikrar.”

“But—” he said.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “I’m not letting
you out of my sight. Shia only knows what you might get up to if I left you to
your own devices.”

“And what of Berys?” he asked quietly.

I lifted my chin and stared intently into his
emerald-green eyes, so full of hurt and sorrow.

“Just don’t bloody well lose.”

When I landed in Verfaren I found the others
ready to depart on my word. Of all of them, it was Aral alone who came forward
to meet me, her eyes full of sorrow. “Varien told us, Shikrar,” she said,
reaching out to touch me. I took a strange comfort from the gesture, though I
could not feel it. “I am so sorry to hear of Treshak’s death. May the Winds and
the Lady preserve us all. This is a terrible day.”

“All hath gone ill this day, truly,” I replied
sadly. “Let us hope that our fortunes will improve.”

“At least the Healers and the Lesser Kindred
have made their peace,” she said, doing her best to speak something of hope to
me.

I nodded. “So much good at least is done. And
you remind me, I would speak with Salera before we leave. Forgive me.”

Aral nodded and hurried off to join Gyrentikh.
The Healer Vilkas awaited her.

I bespoke Salera. She flew swiftly to meet me,
showing me gleefully Mik’s surprise at her abrupt departure aloft. She landed
neatly before me. “How may I serve you, Eldest?” she asked.

“Lady, forgive that I am so abrupt, but time
presses. Have you any knowledge of what lies before us away east?” I asked.

She bowed and closed her eyes. “It is
desperately hard to tell,
Eldest,”
she said apologetically, speaking with her eyes closed. “There are so many
images, so many possible ways that the future might go. But a few things are
surely to come. The battle will take place on a bright day, with clouds of
smoke. Vilkas rises, but whether Sun God or Death of the World I cannot say,
for he knows not. Lanen crushes that which was stone.” She opened her eyes, and
I felt a terrible sorrow pouring from her. “Many of us will never return,
Eldest,” she said, her voice suddenly rough. “Far too many. Forgive me. I have
seen no more.”

I bowed to her, my heart weighed down as with
great stones. “It is enough, Lady. Thank you.”

Lanen and Varien stood together outside the
ruined wall of the College, their arms about one another, waiting for me. From
a distance I could not be certain where the one ended and the other began, and
it struck me as a good thing. The moment Salera left, they hurried up to me.

“Do you come to bid me farewell, my friends?”
I asked, surprised.

“No, Shikrar. We come to beg you, of your
kindness, to bear us eastwards,” said Lanen.

“Lady, I thought you both meant to remain
here,” I began.

“How could we disappoint the ballad-singers?”
said Lanen lightheartedly, but I had known her longer than any other Gedri, and
I could see the dread that wrapped her round.

“Shikrar, how should I wait here when the
Black Dragon is come?” said Varien, his words full of resolve, his heart awash
with fear and sorrow. “It cannot be. I will not abandon my people.”

“And if you think I’m going to let him leave
me here,” said Lanen as they climbed into the shelter of my hands, “think
again. We’ve been apart long enough. What if Berys should have a de-monline
ready to return here? No. Together. It’s the only way.” I noticed that she
carefully did not meet my eyes, or use true-speech.

“It is well, then, my friends. Together,” I
said, crouching. I spread my wings and leapt into the sky. Idai, Gyrenrikh, and
Alikirikh with their charges followed close behind.

The winds were behind us, for a blessing,
blowing light rain away east. The moment I reached soaring height I let out the
breath I had not realised I was holding. I could not really feel those I
carried, as they were so Ught, but their minds were far more open to me than I
think they realised.

Varien/Akhor felt a measure of joy to be aloft
once more, riding the spring wind, studying the land as it passed below him—but
that joy was tainted with fear for Lanen, fear that he should have tried harder
to persuade her to stay behind, fear lest we should lose and Berys rise
triumphant.

Lanen s thoughts were harder to read, but I
caught them when they were wrapped about her babes. She, too, feared Berys to
the depths of her soul and was terribly upset and unsure of her decision. She
knew that she had made it based on sheer emotion, but even as we flew I felt
her resolve strengthen. She was with her husband. Whatever else might happen
they would not be parted again, and that was good.

I kept to myself the visions that Salera had
spoken of. It was her sorrow that most moved me, and I had the very strong
impression that she had lied when she declared she had seen no more. I have to
say that I did not envy the Aiala that very strange ability. I would far rather
go into battle with a heart full of hope.

I found an obscure source of comfort in the
fact that I was ignorant of my own future as I rode the sky, with the wind and
the sun behind me, eastwards.

Following the Black Dragon.

I soon outdistanced the other three. I could
not help but smile, and bespoke Gyrentikh with a small jest regarding the
flying lessons I had given him so long ago. He laughed and suggested that
perhaps the fact that I was half again his size with near twice his wingspan
might have something to do with the matter. True enough, he did have a point.

The sun was nearly gone down in the west when
my companions and I saw in the distance a great mass of the Kantrishakrim,
flying slowly and wearily. I bespoke Kedra and learned they were seeking a
place to land for the night, and indeed they began to descend even as we spoke.
I caught a late updraft and wheeled, rising, as they all began to land upon a
vast grassy plain.

“We are all desperately weary in body and in
spirit, my father,” Kedra said to me privately. “The strength of the Dhrenagan
we cannot yet fathom—indeed, I am not certain that they yet know it
themselves—but it seems that for this night at least they are willing to rest
with us.”

“Where is the creature?” I asked, resolutely
ignoring the wash of sorrow that swept over me. Poor Treshak.

“Not far ahead. It looks neither left nor
right, it has ignored us entirely. Eastwards, ever eastwards, in unbroken line.
Forgive me, my father, I can do no more,” he said, and I watched as the last of
the small figures below went to land. The ground so far below was falling into
shadow as I sped on. I sought greater height, that I might not come upon the
thing in the darkness by accident. Twilight did not last so long here as on our
vanished home, and the moon would not rise for many hours yet—wait! there!

Varien, Lanen, and I watched it, flying low to
the ground, flapping stupidly—I wondered again that it could remain airborne.
It flew like the veriest youngling, expending vastly more energy than it needed
to. At the size, I had thought it must exhaust itself soon with such wild exertion—but
no. We watched it as it flew and flew, in a straight line, working ten times as
hard as it needed but showing no signs of weariness. I fell off a few points
north, that I might not fly directly over the thing. The Raksha-stink was
terrible, even so high up as I was, and I could not answer for my instincts if
I came any closer. So I flew far around it, going some way north then turning
back east. Now that I was not trying to keep it in sight, I fell into my normal
rhythm. It was vastly easier than having to hang back at the pace of the evil
thing. It was soon far behind us.

That in itself was a blessing.

“It is not alive, Shikrar, it cannot be,” said
Varien at last. “Nothing that breathes could fly like that. It would fall from
the sky. It is a golem, it must be.”

“Your thoughts echo mine. Animated by the
Demonlord, given the energy to continue by who knows what obscene arrangement
with Berys.” As weariness overtook me I could not keep the plaintive note out
of my mindvoice. “Akhor, what is there to do? It is made of molten rock! I
cannot think how to defeat it.”

I heard his mindvoice laugh a little. “Is this
my old friend Hadreshikrar, come to despair so soon? I cannot believe it. We
have only known of its existence for a few hours, my friend.”

“It is no laughing matter, Akhor. You know
yourself that time is short. It flies towards something with a singleness of
purpose, and I expect that something is Berys. I cannot imagine what is going
to happen to it when it finds him, my friend, but I would wager that things are
only going to get worse for us all.”

“I fear you have the right of it, Shikrar. But
though it may be inanimate, you are not. How fare you?”

“I am weary, I must confess,” I replied,
though that was not the entire truth. I was exhausted.

“Then let us take our ease and go to land,” he
said. “The morrow will be time enough to pursue.”

“Surely the best strategy is to get wherever
it is going before it does?” I said, trying to sound as if I had the strength
to fly all the night through.

He snorted. “Don’t be an idiot, Shikrar. You
need rest, and by all accounts it is a very long way to the East Mountains.”
More solemnly he added, “Lanen and I are weary as well, my friend, and it would
be useful to spend some time in careful consideration. We must find some way to
fight so fierce afire, where our own strength avails not.”

I began to look for a landing site and
discovered that there was a sizeable river below us, running
northwest-southeast. I began to spiral downwards, faster than I would have liked,
but the air here was very still and it was hard to keep altitude. I fear that
my friends had a bit of a rough landing, but when they found their breath again
they assured me that they were not injured.

We had came to ground in what appeared to be
an uninhabited stretch of land beside a tributary of the great river that
divides the north of Kolmar from the south. There was a small wood nearby from
which Lanen and Varien gathered fuel for a large fire, and the river graciously
provided both drink and food. The fish were much smaller than I was used to,
but there were enough for all.

“Idai and Gyrentikh are together,” I told
Lanen and Varien. I lay curled around the fire, they sat together on the other
side and ate. “Idai bespeaks me. They have not seen our blaze yet. I will build
it a little higher, that it may be more readily seen from aloft. Alikfrikh
comes also, but she despairs of finding us before dawn because of—oh!” I was
pleased to find that even at such a time, I could still find amusement in the little
things.

“What has delayed her?” asked Varien grimly.

“No, no, there is nothing amiss—it is only
that she has had to deal with Will,” I said, starting to hiss with amusement. “It
seems that Will—well, Alikfrikh reports that he is a typical useless Gedri, and
that he hates flying.” I rejoiced to see a real smile cross Varien’s face. “The
poor soul grew ill and demanded to return to land after the first hour. I
gather that after he rid himself of his last meal he felt a little better.”

Blessed be the Winds, they both laughed. “Poor
Will!” said Varien. “Is he still so convinced that he must come with us?”

“He is,” I replied. “Though I cannot fathom
his reasons.”

“Can you not, Eldest?” asked Lanen quietly. “It
seems clear enough to me.” Varien and I stared at her blankly and she sighed. “Man
or Kantri, it obviously doesn’t matter, you are both blind as moles at noon.
Have you not seen the way Will gazes at Aral when she’s not looking?”

“I confess I had not noticed,” I said,
intrigued.

“It breaks my heart,” she said sadly. “He’s a
good man. If only she could see past Vilkas. She desires to be warmed by that
furnace that burns in her friend, and she will not turn and see the home fire
and welcoming hearth that await her lightest word.” She yawned then, hugely,
and smiled up at me. “Forgive me, Eldest. I am weary beyond belief.” She moved
nearer Varien and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Alikfrikh says that Rella has mocked Will
unmercifully,” I reported, speaking quietly so as not to disturb Lanen. “Strangely,
it seems to have given him comfort.”

“Good for Rella,” replied Varien, grinning. “Thank
the Winds that she at least can keep her sense of perspective.”

“I will confess that I am finding that
difficult,” I said slowly. “The legend…”

‘The legend of the Black Dragon indeed!”
Varien snorted.
“A story to frighten
younglings into behaving. I am not a great believer in legends, Shikrar, and
now that I have seen it—well, there may be a grain of truth in the centre of
every old tale, but I do not think that our world is going to end.”

I looked up, stretching my wings and my neck,
working out the knots in the long muscles. “Perhaps you are right, and legend
is … exaggerated.” I sighed. “The air here is sweeter than at home,” I said
wistfully. “Have you smelled the flowers on the night breeze, Akhor? Even so
early in the year. They are intoxicating.” I breathed deep, savouring the heavy
scent of the blossoms, the clean smell of the river, the sparkling glory of the
brilliant star field above us in the deep sky. “The water is good, the land is
good, and I rejoice with all my soul to see you and your beloved together
again.”