Malawaitha, the axe dangling in her hand. The tonic Afec had given her still sizzled in her brain, but the red killing lust had gone, leaving only regret and a deep sadness at the waste of all of this. She stared down at Malawaitha through a sparkle of tears and listened to the crowd around her scream for blood. They wanted a death; it didn’t seem to matter whose.
“Live or die?” she offered in Tarmakian so softly only Malawaitha could hear her.
For a long moment there was no answer. The young Tarmak lay face down on the stones, wheezing for air and bleeding profusely. Overhead, lightning flared in the clouds that now covered the sky. Linsha could hear the thunder rumble over the voices of the spectators.
Malawaitha moved. Slowly she pushed herself to her knees to face Linsha and hefted the axe. “I will never share Lanther with a human,” she spat through the blood in her mouth.
“Lanther betrayed you,” Linsha replied sadly. “If you had helped me instead of fought me, you wouldn’t have had to share him with anyone.” Then, knowing there was no other way to end this duel, she slammed Malawaitha’s axe out of the way and brought her own weapon around in a swift arc that sliced into the woman’s neck and sent her head dropping to the ground.
The body stayed upright, swaying gently a moment, before it toppled forward and lay still on the stone paving. Linsha threw her axe to the ground. She stood still in the center of the watching Tarmaks and lifted her eyes to Lanther. The first few drops of rain splattered on the stones around her.
7
Lightning cracked in the sky over the palace, and thunder rumbled into the hills, but the Tarmaks paid little attention to the approaching storm. They watched as Malawaitha’s body collapsed to the stones. Without a moment’s hesitation to regret her death or mourn her passing, they burst into a wild chorus of warcries, vociferous shouts, and a spate of appreciative applause. The dead woman had failed and was gone. The victor had fought well, with surprising ferocity, and had won her position as the Chosen of the Akkad-Dar. The Emperor rose from his golden throne. He nodded once to Linsha, shouted a command to his people, then moved ponderously into the palace followed by his slaves and the Empress. The Tarmaks shouted with pleasure, and every man and woman carried their goblets, plates, clothing items, musical instruments, and in some cases each other up the stairs and into the large audience hall. Slaves brought the tables, the benches, the lamps, and the wine. The feast, it appeared, was moving indoors.
Linsha did not move. She stood by Malawaitha’s body and stared down at the corpse, her face expressionless. It was all she could do to stay upright.
Afec was the first to reach her through the streams of people moving up the stairs. He touched her arm and looked worriedly into the stormy green eyes that turned to look at him.
“What did you put in that drink?” she demanded.
He looked slightly embarrassed. “I may have given you a larger dose than you needed. In the rush of the moment, I did not take into account your smaller stature.”
Lanther joined them. His blue eyes sparkled with pleasure and pride as he slipped his blue robe over her shoulders and hustled her toward the stairs.
She was too tired to argue. The only thing keeping her on her feet was Afec’s tonic. She had a feeling that when it wore off, she would collapse like a sail in a dead calm. Just once she glanced back and saw Afec kneeling by Malawaitha’s body, his head bowed, while slaves collected her head and gathered her body to be carried off. At that moment, the rain dropped out of the sky in a deluge of pouring water, and Lanther pushed her inside the large double doors of the audience hall.
She hoped he would take her back to the Akeelawasee where she could lie down, have a long drink of water, and have her injuries attended to. The swelling on her left eye was getting so bad she could barely see through the puffy flesh, her throat hurt, and the laceration on her stomach stung like fury under the blue paint.
“We’re going this way,” he said, pushing her in a different direction, away from the festivities.
“Lanther, please,” she contested. “I’ve had enough.”
“We’re going to see the dragon egg.”
He would tell her nothing more in spite of her protests and questions until they had walked through several long corridors and stopped in front of a door.
Linsha fell silent and studied the entrance. While many of the other doors in the palace were lightweight barriers of red-colored woods carved with geometric patterns, this door was massive, dark, stained with age, and decorated only with two iron straps added to the door for strength. Two of the emperor’s guards stood on either side of the door like ponderous statues and looked neither left nor right.
She glanced at Lanther through her one good eye, hut he held his finger to his lips and shook his head. She became aware then that they were not alone with the guards. Other Tarmak warriors were coming silently down the hall carrying torches. They formed a line behind the Akkad-Dar and waited patiently, although for what Linsha had no idea. She hoped they were not here for the dragon egg, for that thought made her very uncomfortable. No good could come of Tarmaks and dragon eggs together. But surely Lanther wouldn’t let any harm come to the egg. He had promised them to her. She had fought for them.
A drumbeat, slow and measured, echoed down the corridor, and the warriors moved quickly to either wall. Clasping their hands in front of them, they bowed low as a procession moved majestically along the hallway toward the gathered warriors. Linsha expected to see the Emperor in front, but as the long line of Keena priests, warriors, and attendants came into her view, the first thing she saw was the casket from the ship’s hold carried on the shoulders of six burly warriors. Beside her, Lanther bowed low.
Linsha’s battered face darkened into a frown of anger. She knew who was in that coffin-Urudwek, the Akkad-Ur, the previous general of the Tarmak armies and the man who had led the invasion of the Missing City, ordered the massacre of the Wadi camp, and murdered her friend, Mariana. The Tarmak should be consigned to the darkest depths of the Abyss, not brought home in honor for some ridiculous burial ceremony.
Lanther grabbed her wrist and pulled her over into a bow. “Do it or they will kill you,” he said in no uncertain terms.
Although her hands clenched into fists and her stomach was tied in knots of anger, Linsha bowed low as the two guards pulled open the massive door and the casket was carried ceremoniously past her into the lighted passage beyond. The priests and attendants followed, and behind them walked the Emperor and his guards. The huge Tarmak inclined his head to Lanther. The Akkad-Dar, keeping a tight grip on Linsha’s arm, fell in behind the Emperor and behind him came the remaining warriors.
The procession moved in time to the beat of a drum-slowly, reverently-along the corridor and down a long flight of stairs to a lower level beneath the palace. From there, they continued downward on another flight of steps that spiraled deeper and deeper below the lowest levels of the building into the native stone of the promontory itself.
Linsha tried to pay attention to where they were going. She was a trained spy and a Solamnic Knight of the highest order who should have been making mental notes and absorbing everything she could see of this new experience. But she was feeling lucky just to stay on her feet as she trudged down the never-ending stairs after Lanther. Her body ached from an unbroken chain of knocks, scrapes, cuts, bruises, and sore muscles from head to foot. That horrible tonic still rumbled in her stomach and fizzed in her head, and the smell of the blue paint and Malawaitha’s blood on her chest made her nauseous. Worse, the smoke and dancing light from the torches left her dizzy and lightheaded. She prayed they would reach the end of the stairs before she fainted or vomited. She wasn’t sure which might happen first.
Thankfully the procession came to the last of the stairs before she lost control of her head or her stomach. They proceeded along a gently sloping course through abroad corridor. The darkness was intense, broken only by the torches carried by the priests and warriors.
Linsha lifted her head and sniffed the air. There was something very reminiscent about this place-a smell, a
