Lords of the Sky

through fields of autumnal wheat and stands of trees. Our horses threatened to falter. We drove them hard; too hard. I felt slaver blow back against my face, and under my knees I could feel the bay’s ribs heaving. His neck was wet with sweat. I knew he could not hold this pace much longer.

Urt shouted, gesturing back. I could not hear what he said, but there was no need: the sight of it was plain enough.

Low in the sky came a skyboat.

It was one of the little scout craft: a questing hound that darted this way and that, crossing our trail, returning to the scent. It followed us inexorable as doom.

I saw others, but none so close. They roamed the valley, but only this one seemed to find our path. I wondered how long before the Kho’rabi wizards felt sure of their prey and sent word to their fellows, and all those darting specks I saw should converge above us and send their magicks against us, and we be all destroyed.

Or would they only trap us? Come down and ring us with such might of magic or plain steel as must deny us all escape?

I thought that then I must deliver Rwyan my promise.

I thought of that gifted I had slain and saw my love’s head turned loose in my hands the same way. I should do it: I had given her my word, and it were better than to leave her to Allanyn’s revenge; but still I felt my belly recoil at the notion.

We rode on. Hooves drummed on hard-packed dirt. I thought the sound must echo against the sky, an aural beacon to our pursuers.

What need of that, to those who bound the aerial spirits to their cause? They could ask the elementals to sound the air, the vibrations of the ground, the flavor of the wind; all of it to their cause: to find us. I looked back and saw the little skyboat cease its questing. It ran straight now, after us; sure as a scented hound. I thought I saw the archers in the basket beneath. I felt my shoulders tense, anticipating the prick of arrows, the blast of magic.

I wondered how it should feel to die. I looked to Rwyan and saw her smile. She called out words I could not hear over the thunder of the hooves and the rush of the wind. I smiled back. I felt no hope at all and could not understand how she could; not now.

Surely we were doomed.

I saw the skyboat closing on us, arrowing after.

And then a shape descend out of the night.

It was a blackness against the stars, a swooping shadow across the face of the moon. I reined my mount to head-hung standstill and sat the heaving animal entirely oblivious of my comrades, of still-impending danger. I was Mnemonikos-and now I looked on what no other Rememberer had ever witnessed. I could not ignore it, even at cost of my life.

I looked on a dragon.

It came down so swift, I had only an impression of the angled leathery wings that spread impossibly wide as it broke its meteoric descent. A long tail lashed and plumed straight. Great limbs thrust out, much as do a cat’s when that lesser creature looks to break a fall. A massive head extended on a serpentine neck, the jaws opened to display fangs as long as Tezdal’s sword; I had no doubt they should be as sharp. I glimpsed enormous eyes, yellow and unblinking.

It made no more sound than a swooping owl. It was as deadly-and if it were the owl, then the skyboat was the mouse.

There was a gaseous explosion as the dragon struck. For an instant it was outlined clear in the fireball of the skyboat’s destruction. It fell through the wreckage, taloned hindfeet closing on the basket, large enough to encompass that float. The wings beat, lifting the massive body back up through the burning tatters of the ravaged supporting sack. I heard the screams of dying men. I saw the dragon rise, the forelimbs clutching now at the basket, the head descending to pluck at the Kho’rabi as if the awesome creature snatched tidbits from a platter. It shook its head as does a terrier worrying at a rat. Bits and pieces-basket and men all mingled-tumbled down. The dragon let fall its prey and beat its wings and hurtled toward me.

I was only dimly aware of Rwyan turning her horse to come back, to stand beside me as we both stared, awed, at this terrible spectacle.

Then our mounts screamed in naked terror and began to buck as the massive shape swooped low overhead.

I felt pain, and the night sky spun madly before my eyes. Then I felt myself lifted and saw three Rwyans kneeling close, all of them expressing a confusing mixture of concern and terror and amazement and hope. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, there was only one Rwyan, and she was asking if I were well.

I nodded and wished I’d not. I think I said yes, but my gaze was already moving past her to the battle in the sky above. I climbed to my feet, wincing as pain’s daggers stabbed my leg. She came close, easing a shoulder beneath my arm, and I held her and leaned against her as we both watched legend unfold.

Urt came trotting back afoot. He was dirtied by his own fall. His eyes were wide, and his jaw hung open in unalloyed wonder. He said nothing, only stared. He radiated fear: I reached out and set an arm around him. His support was welcome, but mostly I sought to reassure him: he shook like an autumn leaf in a savage wind, hung by the most tenuous connection to the sanity of the tree.

I said, “Urt, they come to save us. Only that! They offer us no harm.” I hoped I spoke true: what I saw in the sky was pure chaos.

He gave me back no answer but a moan. I drew him closer and felt his arm span my waist. He was very hot and trembled constantly.

Rwyan said, “Remember the dreams, Urt! Believe them! This is our salvation come.”

He made a sound like a puppy’s whimper. I thought that this must be how it had been for all those Changed we Truemen left behind in Ur-Dharbek as dragons’ prey, that we might live free. I thought him then the bravest of us all, for he did not run but stood with us and fought the terror inherent in his blood; inherent in what we’d made him.

I heard hoofbeats and saw Tezdal come back, fighting his terrified mount. I wondered at his horsemanship, that he could still control the panicked animal. He snatched it to a stop and sprang down. He was no less amazed than we. I could not tell if he was so frightened, but he let go the reins and stared skyward as the roan stallion ran wild. He drew his sword, and I believed that he would fight the dragons if they attacked us.

Rwyan said, “They come to save us, Tezdal,” and there was such confidence in her voice, he sheathed the blade.

Above us skyboats fell in blossoms of fire.

The night filled with those sparkling flowers as the balloons were burst by claws and fangs and lashing tails. My ears dinned with the howls of dying men and the savage calling of the dragons. Worst, somehow, was the shrieking of the elementals, for that sound lanced sharp into the deepest fibers of my being. It was the sound of creatures entrapped and resentful, now freed and glorying in the destruction of their jailers in a manner quite alien to the triumphant belling of the dragons. Theirs was the shouting of warriors come to honest battle. It was clean as the howling of wolves: they did not gloat, only announced their victory. The elementals made a different sound, and it grated on my nerves and set my teeth on edge. It told me it was wrong to bind such spirits to man’s cause, or any other, save their own. I saw them burst loose and I felt their gratitude, that they were freed from bondage to unwilling cause. I saw (I cannot be absolutely sure, but I tell you what I believe) numerous of them join with the dragons to slay the Kho’rabi, like prisoners turning on their captors. I believe I saw bodies rent without attention of the dragons. It was as if vague forms wound around the falling Sky Lords and slew them as they fell; as if the very air plucked them apart. I think they took their revenge.

Then, I saw only the falling skyboats and the terrible culling of the dragons. The Kho’rabi wizards flung ineffectual magic at the sourian predators; and it was useful as blunt-tipped practice arrows against battle armor.

The dragons seemed not to notice. They shrugged it off and fell and clawed and bit, oblivious of anything save the need to pluck the skyboats from the sky.

Which they did with the calm and bloody efficiency of a wolf pack cutting deer from the herd. Cold as mathematics; indifferent to aught save the task in hand.