“Or they may go elsewhere. My comrade, we’re both initiate in the ways of blood and chaos. If you say you know these cultists hold a solution to your problems, I believe it. But sometimes the dark powers provide answers to our questions that, while true, don’t really help us because we lack the strength to turn the revelations to practical advantage.”
“Yesterday, I lacked the strength. Today, I have it. Exzethlix is the sturdy spear in my hand.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You have always desired the free run of Myth Nantar, to trade in her markets and speak in her councils.”
The ‘chitl laughed bitterly. “As if the allied peoples would ever tolerate ixitxachitls.”
“They accept morkoths, who hold as many slaves as your folk. A morkoth even sits on the Council of Twelve. When I destroy the dragon flight and restore the worship of Umberlee, I will become an influential figure in Myth Nantar. I will exert that influence on your behalf.”
“At which point, His Holiness indicts me for heresy.”
“Naturally, the matter will require circumspection, but I trust you have not forgotten how to scheme. Nor to gamble.”
Yzil pursed his lips and sucked at his fangs, pondering. At last he said, “No. Tempting though it is. I’m sorry.”
“As am I,” said Tu’ala’keth. “I had hoped to do this amiably.”
The ray glared at her. “Meaning what?”
“Today, you are the savior of Exzethlix. Such a hero that, for a while, even the Vitanar will hesitate to interfere with you. But your situation would deteriorate quickly if folk found out you deliberately condemned the wrong person for the destruction of the eggs and left the actual culprit swimming free.”
“I did it that way because you suggested it!”
She shrugged. “Who will care? You still bear responsibility for your own decisions.”
“You realize,” he said, “that if I kill a shalarin, a slave creature, here and now, no one will question or care about that either.”
“Are you entirely healed? As you gorged on blood, did you take the time to replenish the spells you expended last night? Are you positive you’re a better fighter than I am, and that you could strike me dead so efficiently I wouldn’t even be able to escape these apartments and confide my secrets to someone before I expired?”
He bared his fangs. “There had better be a lot of treasure.”
CHAPTER 11
he locathah spread the mouth of the net bag, and the fish swam sluggishly forth. They were already dying, poisoned by the enchantments the spellcasters had poured into their veins, and that was fine. It made them easier to catch.
Wraxzala kicked forward, converging on the cloud of fish with the other ixitxachitls, and sank her teeth into her share of the bounty. The blood was vile, bitter with power, and she had to clench herself to keep from retching it back up. Pain burned through her guts and blurred her vision then waned.
Afterward, she didn’t feel any different, and wondered if the magic had truly prepared her for the venture to come. Then she sneered at the very notion, for obviously, nothing could do that.
She peered back and forth, at the other warriors, ixitxachitl and slave, waiting here in the shallows with the surface of the benighted sea rippling just a few yards above their heads. Yzilcurse him! had promised the surviving thralls soft treatment, and his fellow ‘chitls, advancement, and some of the stupider folk in each category looked eager to get started. Most, however, appeared so tense and morose, it was plain they shared Wraxzala’s trepidation.
By the Five Great Deeds of Vengeance, how she wished she’d never threatened the eggs! When Yzil killed His Holiness’s envoy instead of her, she’d believed she’d enjoyed a miraculous escape but now understood the devitan actually had identified her as the guilty party. He’d just opted to punish her in a different fashion.
But this way at least she had a chance. She was, after all, an ixitxachitl and a vitan, blessed by Ilxendren and superior to all lesser creatures. Logically, that ought to mean she and her allies could defeat them, even under adverse circumstances.
She resolved to keep telling herself that until she believed it.
The vitan in chargeshe wondered sourly what he’d done to anger Yzilgave the command, and the company advanced. Soon the seabed sloped high enough that the locathahs, koalinths, and their ilk had to plant their feet and wade with their upper portions sticking up out of the water. At that point, stealth became impossible, and Wraxzala decided she, too, might as well experience the world above the waves. With luck, she might even have a few heartbeats to get used to it before she had to start fighting for her life.
She swam upward, through the heaving interface between sea and air, and onward. Once she exited the water, the medium supporting her felt thin and insubstantial, yet she didn’t fall. In fact, precisely because it offered less resistance, she had a giddy feeling she might even be able to swim faster above the waves than below.
She zigzagged awkwardly, seeing how much effort it took and how it felt. Other ixitxachitls rose from the waves to either side. Then, on land, among the dilapidated huts, some creature started yelling. She couldn’t understand the words, but it was obvious what was going on. A sentry had spotted the invaders coming ashore.
Hulking bipedal shapes with folded wings, serpent heads, and dragging, writhing tails shambled forth from the shacks. Wraxzala had never seen such brutes before, but according to the wretched, meddling waveservant, they were called “dragonkin.” In these first confused moments, the reptiles failed to understand just how many ixitxachitls and thralls had risen from the depths to threaten them. They evidently thought they could make a stand on the beach and push the intruders back.
The ixitxachitl commander shouted an order. Dozens of locathahs with their goggle-eyed piscine faces, and brawny koalinths with big, scalloped ears and shaggy manes now plastered to their skulls, shouldered and discharged their crossbows. Many of the bolts flew wild. Like Wraxzala herself, the missiles moved differently in air. But some found their marks, and dragonkin fell.
Most of the surviving reptiles scrambled for cover, from which they would likely seek to harry and slow the advance. The invaders would need to root them out before they could pass in safety, but though they’d pay a toll in blood, they could certainly manage it. The real problem was that two other dragonkin turned, spread their leathery pinions, and flew inland… to fetch reinforcements, without a doubt.
Though Yzil had been too cagey to say it in so many words, Wraxzala understood that, according to his strategy, that was more or less what was supposed to happen. As she and her companions fought their way up the mountainside, they were supposed to lure the enemy forth to engage them.
But by the poison tides of the Abyss, please, not yet! If the wyrms and all their minions descended on the invaders before they even established a beachhead, they’d have little trouble wiping them out.
Wraxzala had absolutely no inclination to imperil herself by chasing the fleeing dragonkin. But unfortunately, only ixitxachitls had any hope of overtaking them, because only they could swim in air. The thralls had partaken of a simpler, less costly enchantment, which merely enabled their gills to function out of water. For they, after all, had legs to provide mobility on land, and their masters had assumed that would prove sufficient.
“No more shooting!” Wraxzala cried. She waited for other voices to echo the order then charged forward. Several other ‘chitls did the same. At least she wasn’t entirely alone.
She raced over the ruined village. The rocky ground rose steeply just behind it. Patches of vegetation clung to the lower slopes.
She still felt clumsy speeding through the air. Every slight flick or tilt of her body achieved too much, and she veered crazily from one overcompensation to the next. But she couldn’t worry about that now.
She peered, trying to pick out a dragonkin, and spied a rhythmic flicker of mottled wings. Unfortunately, the reptile had a considerable lead, in distance and elevation, too.
Only magic could hinder it now. Still pursuing, she rattled off an intricate sequence of rhyming palindromes. The power, as it gathered and poised itself to strike, made a sound like bright, wicked laughter.
