had released his warriors to return to the Heartlands on leave and he had allowed himself similar time. He had returned to a land where old tribal tensions had resurfaced in those that had been left behind. And his lack of a victory had done nothing to reaffirm his influence and standing.
Tribal conflict had robbed him of warriors and more than one attempt had been made on his life during his times away from the East. That these attempts had failed reminded him whom the Spirits had chosen to lead the Wesmen to dominion over Balaia.
And so he had been able to keep his counsel during the upheaval and wait for the blood to cool and the tempers of the enraged to ebb. It had not always been easy for his people to be branded cowards in the face of provocation. But he had their unflinching loyalty after so many years of provident rule and he rewarded it again. Once the tribal struggles had burned themselves to mere sparking embers, the Paleon remained the strongest tribe in the Heartlands.
Once again the tribal lords had been driven to kneel to him. Those who had backed the opposition to him had been banished to that place where the spirit would never find rest.
With the Heartlands at relative peace and with those he trusted most ruling the tribes he most feared, he could turn his mind once again to conquest of the East. And for the first time he wondered if it would be truly possible. Mages he could wear down. Mere men he could defeat by force of arms and courage. But he had no weapon against the demons.
Worse, if they defeated the eastern mages, they could eventually threaten him and his people. It was a curious paradox. On the one
side, he had travelled back from the mage lands knowing that the rule of magic on Balaia was finally at an end. Yet on trie other, he had confronted an adversary of which die Spirits themselves were scared. He had no reason to suspect that they would attempt to invade the Heartlands but there was trouble among the dead and he had no way to calm it.
Tessaya was sitting outside his farmhouse under a porch of woven thatch that kept away the heat of the sun* as it climbed into early afternoon. It had been hot this late spring and they had been concerned about the survival of their main crop. It had been fortunate that hostilities among the tribes had concluded with enough time to see irrigation organised, the crops saved and starvation averted.
Around him, his small village was alive. A hundred farmsteads grouped in concentric circles with his at their hub. Young animals ran free in their paddocks, wheat, corn and potato crops burgeoned and swayed in the cooling breeze. Children laughed, men and women put their backs to their work.
From the small stone temple that was the spiritual centre of every Wesmen settlement, Tessaya watched his ancient Shaman, Arnoan, bustle towards him. Across the dirt road that separated their buildings he came. Tessaya called his wife and asked for more pressed fruit and spice juice. The old man would be out of breath at the rate he approached.
Arnoan was red in the face by the time he had crossed the short distance. Tessaya pulled up a chair for him and helped him up the few steps onto his porch.
'Sit, sit before you fall,' he said.
Arnoan, dressed in the heavy cream robes of his office despite the weather, waved him back to his own seat.
'It is not me you have to be concerned about, Tessaya.'
He was the only man whom Tessaya allowed to use his name without prefix, and then only in private.
'You have received wisdom, my Shaman?' He handed Arnoan the cup of juice his wife had poured. The Shaman gulped at it gratefully. The remaining wisps of his pure white hair blew about his head and the spotted skin on his face lightened visibly as he cooled. He
regarded Tessaya with those sunken grey eyes that the Wesmen lord had long thought were years past death.
'How long ago was it? That the dragons came from the stain in the sky and you told me you had no need of spirits?'
Tessaya chuckled. 'You have a long memory, old man.'
'And I know how the world turns, Tessaya. And the problems you face are far more severe than any you have faced thus far.'
Tessaya raised his eyebrows. 'Really? How so?'
'Tell me. Do you truly believe in the strength of the Spirits?'
'They have influence over the hearts and minds of the Wesmen,' he conceded. 'They are wise and have helped us in difficult times past.'
'And if they were no longer there, my Lord, what then?'
'Then we would have to seek our path in this world without the guidance of our dead,' said Tessaya after a pause.
'No, Tessaya. Because there would be no path for us. The demons would take it from us.'
Tessaya laughed but he felt a moment's anxiety. 'They cannot touch us. The Easterners are weak and their souls are taken easily. Ours not so.'
Arnoan leaned forward and gripped Tessaya's arm hard. 'We only resist because the Spirits protect us, you know that.'
'And they always will.' Tessaya looked down at Arnoan's hand. The Shaman did not relax his hold.
'Should the demons defeat the East, they can strike west or south without opposition. They desire passage to the Spirit world from this one.'
'How?'
'That I don't know but the Spirits believe they will find it here. And should they succeed we are all forfeit to them on a whim.'
Tessaya shook his head. 'This is madness. How can the demons threaten the dead? The heat has upset your reason.'
'Perhaps it has, Tessaya.' Arnoan let go his grip and fell back into his chair. The weave creaked. 'After all, I am just an old man overdue to join them, am I not?'
'Maybe you are. I would not be tempted to think so if you made sense.'
T can do no more than issue the warning that I have been given. The contact is never transparent, Tessaya, you know that.'
Tessaya threw up his hands. 'But isn't it part of the Shaman's art to decipher the jumble they receive?'
'And it is a miracle we understand as much as we do.'
'Tell me what it is you must.'
'You must prepare, Lord Tessaya. A battle is coming and help will appear from an unbidden angle.'
'Is that it?' Tessaya pushed a hand through his hair.
'The Spirits are in ferment, Tessaya. They fear the invaders and so should you. They have to be repelled. All I know is that you will not be alone in your struggle.'
During the night that followed, Tessaya slept little. His mind was plagued by visions he could not begin to understand. He did not know whether it was the Spirits who talked to him or if it was his own mind churning over Arnoan's words. When morning came, he could not deny that the Shaman had shaken him, but he had no answers.
He went to the temple to pray before returning to the East and Xetesk.
It was a sight that no dragon had ever thought to see. Not Skoor, Veret, Gost, or Stara. And least of all Kaan or Naik. A sight that would have fired the breath of the ancients. But so it happened and word of mouth did so much more than their entreaties ever could.
Sha-Kaan and Yasal-Naik, flying wing to wing. Allied if not friends. Carrying a simple message. A plea.
The Great Kaan's feelings were mixed. The cessation of hostilities between the two mightiest broods of Beshara was a triumph but left him deeply dissatisfied in spirit. He knew Yasal would be feeling the same. Both would have preferred the other's capitulation and extinction. So it was with warring broods.
Yet linked to his deep-seated unease, Sha-Kaan could not shift the feeling that he had embarked on a task of soaring magnitude. A task that would secure, if it was successful, the survival of dragons. Which broods would prosper beyond that survival, he could not begin to guess.
