group. The big Tarmak guard saw her coming and turned his attention to her, away from the small blonde with the little weapon.
Behind him, Callista moved, her beautiful face set in a mask of grief and rage. Linsha saw her and screamed the Solamnic warcry to keep the guard’s attention focused on her. Swift and deadly, Callista’s dagger flashed in the light of the fires as she took a flying leap onto the Tarmak’s back and brought the edge of the dagger across his throat. Blood sprayed over his neck and chest. The guard fell forward onto the stones, and Callista fell on top of him. He struggled to roll over as his blood pooled over the cobblestones.
Callista clambered off his body and spat a name at him Linsha had only heard in the streets of the Missing City. She looked up at Linsha with tears in her eyes. “Afec-!” was all she could say.
Linsha’s eyes fastened on the fallen slave. She thought he had just dropped to the ground when the dragon came, but she could see now there was blood on his white robe. Too much blood. Crying, she knelt beside him and took his hand. He was not dead yet, but she could see he was almost gone. “Thank you,” she said.
A flicker of a smile settled on his aged face. “Take this,” he murmured, trying to push a large sack into her hands. “For you. Read it. Ariakan was… not Amarrel. He was…
She took the bag just to please him, for his words did not sink in right away. She was too concerned for him. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “You are free.”
The smile remained. The life behind it escaped at last.
Her head snapped up. Her blood ran cold. It could not be. She had given him enough powder to keep a draft horse asleep for a day. How could he be awake? How could his voice ring over the uproar in the courtyard? And yet, there he stood on the steps of the palace, the fire behind him, his face stained with rage.
“Lanther.” The name came out like a curse.
Linsha did not wait to see what he would do. She dropped Afec’s hand, snatched up the bag, and bolted for the dragon. “Callista! Sirenfal!” she screamed. “Time to go!”
The young brass heard her and extended a foreleg. Linsha and the courtesan scrambled up her leg and barely made it to her back before the dragon crouched and sprang up into the night sky. The dragon’s wings stretched up then beat in a powerful downstroke that helped fan the fires she had set in the palace. The force of her take-off flattened the two women to her neck.
“Hold on!” Linsha yelled to Callista as the dragon veered away from the palace.
The warning was needless, for the courtesan had her arms wrapped around Linsha’s waist like bands of iron and her head buried in Linsha’s shoulder.
She glanced down once and saw Lanther still standing on the steps. His face was turned toward them. In his hand was a sword. A cold shiver jolted up her spine.
She turned to look ahead. The palace fell away behind them, and she saw the field where the marriage games had taken place. They were headed the wrong way.
“South, Sirenfal!” she shouted over the creak of the dragon’s wings. “We have to go to the sea!”
“Not yet,” the brass answered in a tone as hard as steel.
Linsha looked down again and saw the Tarmaks’ city spread away beneath them, dotted with torchlight and filled with sleeping people.
The dragon’s breath seared across the large barracks-like building Linsha had seen on her arrival. The building burst into a conflagration, and in its fires Linsha saw hope.
“Sirenfal! Leave the city! You don’t have the strength!”
“No!” howled the dragon. “They took my eggs! They took my mate! They ruined me! I will kill them all!”
“Listen to me! Take your revenge, but use your head! The ships down there in the harbor will sail for Ansalon in five days! You can save our land. Burn those ships!”
The dragon’s body dropped in a dive that took Linsha’s breath away. She clung on, hoping desperately that Callista could hold. She heard the courtesan’s voice rise in a shout, then all sound was lost in a tremendous roar from the furious dragon. A jet of boiling air streamed from her mouth.
Linsha saw the harbor below. There were the ships tied side by side, many of them filled with food, weapons, armor, and the supplies of a conquering army. The dragon’s breath struck the wooden vessels and ignited them in an instant. She soared over the harbor burning every ship she could see, then she swooped around and came back to incinerate the ones she’d missed. The harbor below turned into a maelstrom of raging fires. She angled around again and incinerated the wharves, the docks, the warehouses, and the piles of stores that sat on the docks waiting to be loaded. Her eyes burned with reflected fires, and the light set her scales glowing like molten brass.
She was breathing heavily when she circled around for a fourth time, and her flying seemed labored.
“Sirenfal, we’d better go,” Linsha advised, staring down at the burning harbor.
The brass didn’t argue. She fired one more blast of heated air into the city itself, then she turned south and winged into the fading night.
14
The sun tinted the eastern horizon before Linsha finally stirred and glanced over her shoulder at Callista. In spite of the tension, the smoke smudges, the dirt, and the blood the courtesan still looked lovely. She met Linsha’s eye and gave a nervous giggle. Linsha started to chuckle, and a moment later both women howled with laughter in a great, freshening release of tension, fear, and pain. They laughed so hard tears came to their eyes, and their faces turned red with emotion. Sirenfal cocked her head to listen.
“Sirenfal, that was magnificent!” Linsha gasped. “I have never seen a sight so beautiful as you sweeping over that palace. How did you get out of the cave so quickly?”
The dragon slowed her flight and angled her wings to catch a rising sea breeze so she could glide for a while. Her face had an expression of glowing joy. “The liquid you gave me… I don’t know what it was. I have never had a feeling like that. I heard you come into the cave and talk to me, but I couldn’t move or speak.” She snorted a hot spurt of air. “That priest put something in my water yesterday morning and forced me to drink it. I felt paralyzed. It was awful. I wanted to answer you, but I couldn’t. Then you gave me that liquid.
My head started to buzz! My heart beat faster, and suddenly I was awake-gloriously and mightily awake. I broke the chain holding me and came to look for you.”
“Thank Kiri-Jolith you did,” Linsha said gratefully. “Thank Afec for that liquid.” She twisted around to Callista and asked, “What happened to him? How was he killed?”
The merriment died from Callista’s blue eyes and she sighed at the memories. “When Sirenfal flew overhead, one of the Akeelawasee guards tried to pull us inside the palace. Afec fought him. He told me to run to you and get away. He fought the big guard to keep him away from me.” She wiped her eyes with the palm of her hand. “Why would he do that? Why would he sacrifice himself for us?”
Linsha did not reply at first. Afec had been an unexpected gift in a foreign world, a friend and an ally. She thought back over the time she had spent with the old Damjatt, his hidden intelligence, his quiet manner, and his determination to help them get free. Thinking of him reminded her of the sack Afec had pushed into her hands. What could be so important? She pulled open the drawstrings and lifted out an ancient book bound in leather and tied with silken cords.
“By the gods!” she breathed. “It’s the text the priests were reading that mentioned Amarrel, the Warrior Cleric. He stole it! Why would he give this to me?”
Callista tried to shrug while keeping a tight grip on the dragon. “What did he say to you? Didn’t he speak Amarrel’s name?”
Linsha dredged her memory for the words she had scarcely heard. “He said Ariakan is not Amarrel.”
“Didn’t Lord Ariakan convince the Brutes he was?”
“Yes,” Linsha replied. She had to shout to be heard over the roar of the wind. “But if he wasn’t… who is?”
