Song of the Dragon

blade was pressed into service-many of them barely trained youths, and I counted myself among them.”

Jith was in awe. “You joined the battle?”

“What choice did I have?” RuuKag snapped. “I was the son of the Clan Elder-an honored warrior with ancestors covered in glory for a hundred years! I had grown up on stories of fortune in battle. It was all such a fabulous game to me. Here was my chance to add to the name of my clan, to add to the glory of my ancestors, to. . to. .”

“To what?” Jith urged.

“To prove myself to my father,” RuuKag roared. “To show the rest of the clan that I wasn’t just a child of privilege but that I, too, could stand with my ancestors and lay claim to my father’s armor.”

“What happened?” Jith asked.

RuuKag sat back and lifted his head. He could see the field before him as though he were there once more. “We formed a line as we had been taught. None of us were tried in battle-we barely knew how to hold a sword much less use it against a cunning enemy. We were supposed to be in reserve-not to be used in the battle itself- but the lines before us broke. The Legions of Rhonas stormed into the gap, pushing back the lines to either side, trying to flank them. But our leader was an old warrior whose mind had grown brittle and his judgment stale. He saw the gap in the lines and ordered our unit to charge into the bloodiest part of the battle.”

“And what happened?” Jith whispered.

“I. . I couldn’t move,” RuuKag replied in a voice that felt detached for the images in his mind. “I saw the death and the blood and the slaughter in front of me, and I just couldn’t move.”

The room was filled with gnomes now, but only the sound of RuuKag’s quiet voice was heard.

“The line closed again as the manticores fought back,” RuuKag continued. “As it turned out, the charge was in vain; the line would have closed anyway, and all those young manticores who stood next to me and charged died for nothing. Yet there were a number of us who just didn’t heed the call-and we lived. It would have been better for us to have died that day-we were branded as the cowards that we were. We lived-and that was our shame.”

RuuKag paused and looked up. Gnomes filled the story-cavern and were standing at the entrances. Each was facing him in rapt attention, sadness in their eyes.

Sadness for him.

RuuKag was now intent on letting all the words come out. He had forgotten his urgent reasons for departing. He spoke of returning to his father’s clan, his shame of a coward son. He told of his banishment and the tears and howls of his mother echoing in his ears as he departed into the Vestasian Savanna.

He spoke of his longing to die.

His words spilled from him throughout the night in one tale that was many tales: the tale of his enslavement to the Devotions of House Timuran; the tale of Drakis teaching him the pain of knowing the truth and RuuKag’s longing for the peace of not knowing at all; and finally the tale of Belag and Drakis leading them across the savanna and how a dishonored manticore now stood on the edge of a knife trying to decide between the oblivion of the elves and the hope of a life at last.

At last, RuuKag stopped, all his words spent. He looked up into the eyes of the gnomes and settled at last on those of Jith.

The young gnome looked at the manticore with his large, watery eyes. . and gently smiled.

RuuKag looked at the ground.

Jith stepped quickly over to the manticore, moving beneath his face and gazing up as he spoke. “Thank you, RuuKag-ki. Thank you for your story. We understand now.”

RuuKag took in a long, deep breath.

Jith took the manticore’s huge paw with both his small hands. The gnome then touched his forehead to the back of RuuKag’s furry grip.

“Your story begins again,” Jith said. “Now begin with ‘I, RuuKag, of the family Hak’kaarin.’ ”

Then, each in turn, the mud gnomes stepped up to RuuKag and, taking the manticore’s paw, placed their foreheads to the back of his grip.

The gnomes were still doing so when Drakis found him the next morning.

CHAPTER 37

Different Roads

“Keep up!” Urulani growled.

“What is your hurry?” Mala snapped. “You said it was less than half a day’s walk, and the sun has barely risen.”

“It’s dangerous out here in the open, princess.” If anything, Urulani quickened her own pace a little. “And can you see those peaks ahead of us?”

“Those hills?” Mala sniffed. “You call those peaks? I’ve climbed bigger hills just to get a good look at real peaks!”

“Really?” Urulani laughed. “Well, then, you won’t mind climbing those. We call them the Sentinels, and those ‘hills’ have kept our clan free of elven interference since before your entire family was groveling and begging for scraps from the Rhonas table.”

They had left the Hak’kaarin mud city only a short time before, just as the first hint of dawn lightened the eastern horizon. Urulani led them northward on a narrow path that occasionally vanished for long stretches. Still, the dark-skinned woman always picked up the trail again as it ran northward toward the Sentinel Peaks.

It was true, Drakis reflected, that these mountains were not as tall as the Aerian Range that they had left so far behind them to the south, but they were not that much shorter and were of a far more formidable aspect. The peaks looked like sharpened teeth that erupted from the ground at nearly vertical angles. Urulani said they would be crossing them, but from where he walked now on the savanna, even he was skeptical as to how they would manage it.

“Drakis! Did you hear that?” Mala turned to the warrior striding next to her under the early morning glow. “Did you hear what she said to me?”

Drakis drew in a deep breath as he strode next to her under the soft glow of early morning light. “Yes, Mala; I heard.”

“Well?” Mala demanded. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Yes, pray tell,” Urulani snarled. “Just what are you going to do about it?”

Drakis rolled his eyes upward in an appeal to the stars. He was no longer sure that he believed in the gods; the only gods that he knew were those of the Rhonas pantheon, which had been instilled in him by his slave masters, and now he questioned everything that they had taught him. Still, at this moment, he would have preferred some divine answers-or even an inspired lightning bolt or two-to help him find a way to keep Mala out of Urulani’s way.

Thus far this morning, the gods had wisely stayed out of the fight as well.

“Please,” Drakis urged. “We need to get into the safety of those mountains. .”

“So you’re siding with her?” Mala shouted, her voice squeaking at the end.

“No!” Drakis said quickly. “I’m not siding with anyone. .”

“She said we groveled for scraps!” Mala fumed.

“Look, Mala,” Drakis shrugged. “She just doesn’t understand how it was or she wouldn’t have. .”

“I don’t understand how it was?” Urulani had the voice of a commander that carried over everyone else when she chose to use it. This was one of those times. “Maybe I don’t understand how it is that you ‘cattle’ managed to find your way out of your pens and wander out here into the world where people actually live and die for something more than their master’s pleasure.”

“Now, wait just a moment,” Drakis said.

“See? Do you see what kind of a person you’ve entrusted our lives to?” Mala jabbed Drakis with her finger. “She has no respect for you or any of us!”