Song of the Dragon

formed the northwestern boundary of the Ibania region. Beyond it stretched the plains of Western Hyperia.

None of these names were of any use to Drakis. Standing with the sun rising at his back, all he saw was a grassy plain that stretched to a hazy, indistinct horizon whose line was broken only by a single vertical finger of mountain so indistinctly blending its purple form with the dark horizon that he could almost doubt its existence. Even the dark line of the Aerian Mountains far to the north seemed more real than the single pillar to the west.

“What is that?” Drakis asked Jugar.

“That?. . Oh, that. Well, uh,” Jugar said, then spat on the ground suddenly. “It’s nothing, really, just a big pillar of rock. We won’t be going anywhere near it, I assure you.”

“It’s called the Hecariat,” Ethis said, walking quietly up to join them. “A place which the dwarves considered both cursed by their gods and haunted by the restless dead-if my memory serves me well.”

“The Hecariat is not a place to be spoken of,” Jugar said and then spat quickly on the ground once more. “That sad tale and its tragic end is best left within the blasted stones of its lost glory. It is an abomination towering over the Hyperian Plains. .”

“And it is our only landmark by which we may guide our steps across those same plains,” Ethis said to Drakis. “We’ll need it to get across, but the dwarf is right; we should endeavor to keep it on our left and pass as well to the north of it as we dare without running into the Occupied Lands to the north. The Emperor, I suspect, still has a large contingent looting the Mountain Halls of the Nine Kings, and they would make a quick end to us all if we ran into them.”

“I’ve got to stop!” Mala dropped down among the tall blades of grass suddenly, her arms folded across her chest.

The stretching plain had proved to be both difficult to navigate and, at the same time, filled with an incredible, dull sameness. For the three days they had trekked across its expanse, the grim dark finger of stone on the horizon by which they fixed their path seemed to grow no closer. Everything now seemed to come with a mixture of both blessing and curse. Streams winding their way around the hills and ponds that accumulated in their hollows brought the welcome, life-giving water that they needed to sustain their march to the northwest, yet their advent was unpredictable, always bringing into question whether this was the last river or lake; moreover, each presented a diversion from their path as they searched for a crossing or way around its shores. Copses and even forests of trees offered the promise of cool shade and rest during the day but in so doing also offered the threat of wild beasts that took such places for their lairs. The rations they had secured as they passed through the portal system had thus far sustained them and kept them largely clear of any dangers the woods presented, but most of Drakis’ companions knew that they would not last them the full measure of their journey. Within the week entering the cool shade of the woods and confronting the creatures there would become imperative. Even the stretches of flat grasslands that made the going much faster and easier also gave in their ease time to think, question, and, worst of all, remember.

“Now is not the time,” Drakis responded with mounting frustration. “There is a copse of trees just atop that far slope. It does not appear large enough to be threatening. We can all rest there in the shade.”

Mala looked up at him with such hatred in her eyes that it took Drakis aback. It was all so confusing. He was smart enough to realize that he had just said something that terribly angered the woman but could not possibly know what it was he had said that should provoke her. Something in their past-some memory he had just tripped on by accident.

It was a hazard whose avoidance he had not mastered, nor did he see, to his additional frustration, how he possibly could master it. A sound, a smell, or some otherwise meaningless, simple thing passing before his eyes would trigger a cascade of thoughts, experiences, and impressions that threatened to overwhelm him and, he knew, had completely overwhelmed others. In those moments he retreated to his training, occupying himself with repetitive tasks of his warrior calling until he beat back those unwelcome memories. Even then he could not avoid collapsing to the ground from time to time, fighting to control his thoughts and cope with the monstrous past that threatened to engulf him. Each night he awakened both screaming and weeping, his heart pounding at the nightmares that filled his sleep.

And he was not alone, for Belag and RuuKag both were doing the same. Each of them seemed to be clinging to something else that kept their individual monsters at bay.

Then there was Mala.

His perfect companion had become sullen, angry, moody, and argumentative, all while generally complaining to the point of distraction. She cried often and the rest of the time eyed him with such contempt as to make him feel shame without telling him why she hated him.

Part of his confusion was that he also knew why; there were memories of harsh words, snubs, slights, insults, fights, and far worse in his treatment of her that were roiling around in his memory. That he had been manipulated by Timuran and each of his masters-he realized now that there had been many different masters-made little difference to him since he had no connection between the memories to judge whether they were cruelties to Mala that had been manipulated by either Timuran or his daughter or terrible acts of his own volition. He flushed as he remembered the many nights when Shebin had called him to her rooms, disgracing him before her lusts, only to discover that the elven whore had arranged for Mala to discover them. Shebin took particular sadistic delight in breaking Mala night after night until she tired of that monstrous game.

Shebin was gone-dead more than likely at the hands of the very slaves she despised-and yet Drakis and Mala were left to deal with the horrors of the memories that now flooded into their minds.

How were they to have a future after such a past?

Drakis awoke with a start, a massive hand covering his mouth. His body tensed for a struggle but a great weight pressed on his chest, pinning him to the ground and making it impossible for him to move.

A huge silhouette crouched over him, its outline framed by the brilliant stars of the night sky. The pressure on his chest let up gently, and the hand came away from his mouth.

“You were crying out,” Belag’s deep voice whispered over him. “I thought it best to quiet you. It is not good to attract the attention of the night.”

Drakis lay still for a moment, then sat up in the darkness. The nightmare still hovered around his thoughts as he struggled to awaken fully.

The manticore warrior moved silently away from him and the others of their group lying close together at the top of a small hill. He stood apart, tall and proud, his eyes searching the horizon as he watched over them.

Drakis stood up and moved to stand next to the lion-man. The manticorian clans hailed from Chaenandria, a land far to the north and east of the Rhonas Empire. Drakis wondered if Belag had ever walked its legendary plains and then realized that Chaenandrian lands might look remarkably like the land over which they traveled now.

The human turned to gaze at the Hecariat. The strange obelisk of mountain stone lay to the southwest still; it seemed to be at a great distance, but Drakis could make out details of its cliffs during the day. In the dark of night, however. .

“What do you suppose that strange light is at the summit,” Drakis asked idly.

Belag frowned. “I do not know. It shifts about the peak. It is an ill omen. We pass well to its north. I shall see that you are kept safe from its curse.”

“Thank you,” Drakis said, his smile unseen in the darkness.

“It is my honor, Drakis,” the manticore replied solemnly. “You are the chosen one, the incarnation of our hope and the prophesied savior of us all. You shall unite the clans-bring to pass the restored Empire of the north and cast doom upon the elven oppressors.”

The great warrior turned toward him in the darkness.

“You are meaning to our existence.”

Drakis said nothing but kept his eyes fixed on the strange lights dancing about the crest of the Hecariat. Belag, it seemed, was clinging to his faith in Drakis as some sort of hero of the gods. It was not true-or, at least, Drakis had to admit that he didn’t remember it being true-but the one thing the human warrior was certain of was that an insane manticore would easily spell the death of