Elvenbane (56 page)

:I have been waiting most of my life to hear those words from the Kin, Keoke
,: boomed a deep, yet gentle, mental voice.

As one, the Kin looked up—as a shadow half again larger than any of them could cast came between them and the sun—and the very last creature that Alara had ever expected to see winged down to a graceful and effortless landing on the cliff-top, beside her.

Father Dragon shone in his full colors, purple and scarlet, and as fit and young-looking as the most athletic of them all. He covered Alara affectionately with his scarlet wing, as the rest of the dragons gaped at him in surprise—

Even Keoke.

“I have,” he repeated, his frill rising, his huge eyes on all of them, “waited for hundreds of years to hear those words, Keoke.” His gaze now rested upon each of them in turn, and Alara saw an entirely new expression in his eyes than she was used to seeing from him. Excitement, anticipation, eagerness. “Many, many years ago, when first I explored this new world for our Kin, I took the form of a halfblood wizard, and I not only walked among them, I worked with them. I was in the company of those who organized the first uprising, and I remained with them to the end of the conflict—and not as an observer, nor as a simple meddler in their affairs. I was
one
of them. And had they not fallen to treachery, I would likely still be one of them.”

He raised his head proudly, and Keoke stared at him as if the Elder thought he had heard things amiss.

“You were with the wizards?” Keoke asked dazedly. “Truly?”

“Truly. I helped to plan the rebellion,” Father Drag on told him. “I have been hoping for many years now, ever since I realized that the wizards were multiplying again, that they would gather their courage and rise up against the elves. And I had planned to join them, if I could, in whatever shape I could.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “I could not in all conscience use my position as your chief shaman to urge you to help the halfbloods—but now that
you
have decided to do so”—he smiled toothily—”I trust you will permit me to join you?”

Shana scanned the sky anxiously. So far, the elven lords had not yet traced the fleeing wizards here. The traps they had left at the Citadel had certainly accounted for some of their followers (and with luck, one or two of the elves), and had, hopefully, disorganized and delayed the hunt.

The herds of deer and other beasts she had driven across the trail should have contributed to the delay.

But it was only delay, and everyone here knew that. They were on the very edge of mapped territory now, and there was a good reason for that. From here on, the terrain was so inhospitable no one other than the young and the fit could expect to pass through it. If they’d had time,
perhaps
they could have made their way across it, children and oldsters and all, by patiently exploring it one day at a time, and making safe trails. But they didn’t have that time.

The enemy was coming, and their stand would be made here, or not at all.

And many had resigned themselves to that stand being a futile one.

Shana had not told the others what Keman had said to her; she had not wanted to raise hopes, only to dash them again. She wanted to believe that he could persuade the Kin—but she remembered, only too well, how they had treated her. First he would have to persuade them to abandon centuries of secrecy. Then he would have to persuade them to act on behalf of creatures who were not Kin.

The prospects of doing both did not seem very likely to her.

If I can bring them
, Keman had said,
look for me to arrive in two days’ time. Three, at the most
. Today was the third day since he had left, and Shana had been watching for him since the morning of the second.

This fortress was as ruinous as rumor had painted it—the outer wall was intact, but only because it had been constructed of stone blocks as wide as most men were tall. Within that outer wall were only the shells of buildings—and the few rooms that had been chipped from the stone of the mountain itself. Wind and weather and the passing of the years had taken care of roofs and any contents.

But the well was still clear, and once they had constructed a new gate of logs, the outer walls were enough to hold off any army. Now, anyone sound enough to thieve goods by magic was working as long as his strength would hold out, Shana included; those areas that were weatherproof or could be made that way were being stuffed to capacity. No one cared if magical alarms were tripped—and there were a great many elven lords who were complacently quarreling over whether or not the wizards were a danger, who would one day discover that they had been robbed even while they quarreled.

They wouldn’t be starved out, unless the elven lords found a way to prevent the thefts, she thought soberly. And the elves wouldn’t drive the wizards out with thirst. They would have to pry the rebels out. I
hope that won’t be easier than I think it will
.

But the legended weapons of the elven lords were terrible things—and she was not certain they would be able to defend against them this second time. Too many secrets had been lost with the old wizards. And even though their foes were fewer, so were they.

And worst of all, the wizards’ most clever and implacable enemy was heading the opposition again.
They
had no such experienced leader.

Dyran wouldn’t stop until they were all ashes.

She scanned the sky again, watching for the blue-on-blue dot that would be Keman—

And saw, instead, three—four—a dozen—

Led by one, larger by far than all the rest, large enough for her to see wings, long neck, a trailing tail…

Her heart leapt into her throat, and she clutched the top of the wall so tightly that her entire hand turned white.

They grew nearer and larger by the moment. And yes, there was little Keman—not really little, but dwarfed by his companion. Flying wearily, she could tell by the labored flapping of his wings, but gamely keeping up with the pace set by Father Dragon. For it was Father Dragon leading the way, royal purple scales shading into scarlet, blazing bravely in the sunlight—and now she saw Alara’s scarlet—Keoke’s green—Orola’s saffron—Liana’s green-into-yellow—

At least a dozen dragons in all, and a dozen times more than Shana had ever hoped to see.

:Is the hunting good here, Foster Daughter
?: Alara asked, her voice warm with amusement.
:I fear we have brought a number of very hungry guests, with quite alarming appetites
.:

:
I—I think so, Foster Mother
,: she managed to reply.

:We will not be lazy guests, I pledge you, my child
,: said another thought-voice, very deep and warm.
:We understand you have some unwelcome visitors on the way. We will be pleased to help you send them away
.:

:Thank you, Father Dragon
,: she replied, in something of a daze.

:You may call me Kalamadea, child
,: he replied, with amusement. :I
think that name may not be entirely unknown to you
—:

Her hand went to the amber globe in her pocket, that had come from the hoard of that same Kalamadea, the dragon who had, in his guise as a wizard, helped to lead the last Wizard War.

:So the Elvenbane found my message and my hoard? Excellent. You may keep your jewel, Shana
,: he continued, following her thought.
:You are making better use of it than I did. Oh, will you tell your friends that we are coming, so that no one mistakes us for overgrown geese for the pot, and shoots us
?:

:Yes, sir
!: she replied, and turned to cup her hands around her mouth and shout down into the fortress below her the words she had never hoped to call.

“The dragons are coming! The dragons are coming!”

THUNDER CRASHED OVERHEAD, vibrating the very stones of the fortress, and Keoke, Liana and Shana all looked up involuntarily. The dragons were in their Kin-forms—which meant that there wasn’t a great deal of room to spare. Fortunately, the upper story of the fortress, beneath the domed roof, had been constructed with dragons in mind.

“You’d think I’d be used to that by now,” Shana said, looking back down at Keoke’s claw in her lap, and her task.

“Why? We aren’t,” Keoke replied. “I never get used to thunder-calling. You know, I must admit that I never thought I would fly to the aid of the wizards only to spend my time growing my claws—”

“And getting them clipped, Elder,” Shana reminded him. “These bits of nail are one of our most valuable weapons, and everyone knows it, sir. Don’t worry, we should have enough nail-clippings as soon as I finish with you two. We can only make so many arrows—and frankly, if we use all of them, this thing will have gone on longer than any of us thought it would.”

“Well, child, there’s little enough we can do at the moment, it’s true.” Thunder rumbled again overhead, and the stone beneath them vibrated with it.

“It’s not as if you haven’t already done plenty,” Shana told him. “We wouldn’t have lasted a day under siege if it hadn’t been for what you did to this fortress. Now, I’m beginning to believe we’re going to win this one—or at least make it too costly for them to pry us out.”

“True enough.” Liana sighed, and extended her left claw to be clipped.

The dragons had wasted no time in implementing their newly won resolution to help. After landing—and eating hugely, which drove the provisioners briefly to despair, until they realized that it would be possible for the dragons to hunt on their own after this—the fourteen draconic allies had turned their abilities and powers to the transformation of the fortress into something siegeworthy.

This was even Shana’s first look at the dragons’ magic, other than shape-shifting. She
still
didn’t know how they accomplished what they did; it seemed to involve the same kind of bone-deep understanding of—of
matter
—that enabled them to change to the forms of such nonliving substances as rocks. All she did know was that they distributed themselves fairly evenly about the fortress, after chasing all the halfbloods and human children out, and began sculpting the place, forming the stone into the shapes they wanted.

When they finished, the fortress was a wonder. The tops of the walls had bulwarked walkways and covered, arched roofs, with view- and arrow-slits, and the tops bulged outward, angled steeply towards the outside—so watchers could see right down to the foot of the walls and so that anything that struck them was likely to bounce out rather than in—and all corners were rounded so that grappling instruments would be unable to get a purchase on them. There was a perfectly clear space between the walls and the single inner building. Catwalks connected the building to the walls at a height of three stories above the ground, and it had no openings at all below the second story, other than the single door on the ground floor. It too had a dome-shaped, rounded roof, to assist in deflecting projectiles. Inside, each floor was a single, enormous room. There wasn’t a seam, a crack, or a join-line anywhere. The entire place looked to have been carved from a single flawless piece of rock. Which meant, of course, that there were no weak points for the siegers to attack—something that probably frustrated the elven lords no end.

The only defects anyone could find in the design were the lack of fireplaces—quickly remedied by rigging stoves with chimneys going out the windows—and the fact that there were no rooms for individuals. And that second problem would only
be
a problem if they had to spend a very long time living here.

For now, however, the transformation of their shelter was nothing less than miraculous, and many of the wizards were soon proclaiming it enthusiastically to be superior to the Citadel.

Shana wasn’t willing to go quite that far—the sanitary facilities at the Citadel were suited for humans, where the draconically designed facilities here were sketchy and primitive, to say the least—but it was far and away the best place she’d ever seen to wait out a siege.

And a siege was exactly what they were under. Dyran had moved in his troops two days after the dragons had completed their alterations, and more elven lords were joining him with every day. The thefts had brought it home to every elven lord with any size estate at all that distance was no guarantee of invulnerability and the losses Dyran had incurred and the size and scope of the Citadel when it was found had convinced everyone that the menace was real, and much more serious than they had thought.

Dyran was still the commander—he had held on to that position by sheer force of will. Shana had prayed for his overthrow, but had no real belief that he would lose the position—really, only death or incompetence would remove him, and they were not likely to see the latter. Insofar as magic attacks went, most of those were counteracted after the first attempt, as the wizards deduced what had been done and how to counteract it. The rest had been effectively shielded against. So far, casualties were light—though they
had
lost about ten, and there were twice that number wounded. Worst was exhaustion; they were keeping a day-and-night watch on the camp, in hopes of avoiding being surprised, and another day-and-night watch on the elven lords.

That was Father Dragon’s doing; he was in charge of the halfbloods’ side, as Dyran was commander of the elven lords’. Shana hadn’t even needed to say anything about those old journals—the wizards themselves had deferred to the dragon, on the grounds that he was already a leader, and he had seen this all before. Father Dragon had seemed taken aback, and reluctant at first to take such a leadership role, but he wasn’t given much choice. The other dragons were disinclined to obey the orders of two-leggers, and once the last of the work on the fortress had been completed, things threatened to become very chaotic unless he took a hand.

As in this watch on the elven lords’ minds. The elves guarded their thoughts, but sometimes things leaked through, and every slip on the elves’ part meant another bit of possibly important information.

On the positive side, the elves had no idea they were facing more than one dragon. The Kin flew out by night to feed, and returned before dawn, careful not to show themselves. In the case where the shamans needed to see the sky to work weather-magic—like now—they left with the others and simply did not return, taking cover somewhere nearby.

The elves dabbled in weather-magic. This was their first taste of the real thing; a full-scale Storm-calling at shamanic hands. Or rather, claws.

There were no wizards outside the walls right now. Pouring rain that drenched everything in sight, and pounded unprotected heads into a stupor, kept everyone under shelter. The elven camps were not so fortunate; the humans, when not fighting, huddled miserably under what shelters they could contrive, under scraps of canvas or under trees—fully half the tents were down and the rest threatened to collapse at any moment. Tent stakes would not hold in the soaked and muddy ground, and violent wind gusts uprooted canvas tents and turned them inside-out in a heartbeat. Nor were the elven lords entirely immune; many of them were sharing quarters, since the feebler magics of elves like Cheynar were not proof against the wind and weather, and
their
luxurious tents were also lying ruined and flat under the pounding rain.

The wizards’ respite was only partial, however. Despite rain, despite lightning licking the ground around the fortress, Dyran was pressing the attack. And word had come from those watching the camp that this was a different man than the Dyran they had watched for so long. This Dyran was implacable, admitting no setbacks, permitting nothing to discommode him for long—a driven man, even an obsessed man. Valyn had grown very quiet when the watcher had told them that—and Shana wondered why. But when he wouldn’t confide anything, either in her, or in Shadow, she dismissed it from her mind. Valyn had been growing more and more distant these days; withdrawn and introspective, and not even Denelor could pry him out of his shell. He was probably feeling rather useless; most of the older wizards knew as much or more combative magic than he did, and he was too softhearted to join the marksmen on the walls. Shadow, on the other hand, was a great deal more help—full of ideas, and the first one to volunteer for any task. He’d been blossoming since the Triana affair, and Shana was relying on him more and more as time went by—for as the liaison with the dragons, and the only one of them who had anything like real fighting experience, she had become the de facto leader of this little revolt.

“There,” Shana said, finishing Liana’s claws. “That should be enough, really. It’s useless to tip every arrow in the fort with dragon-claw, it really doesn’t do anything more against humans than ordinary steel would.”

“So what are you doing, might I ask?” Keoke said absently, then transformed to a halfblood shape, teetering for a moment before he caught his two-legged balance. Liana followed his example, more slowly.

Shana swept the nail-clippings carefully into a basket for the wizards acting as fletchers. “We’re giving the arrows to our three or four best marksmen, and every time one of the elves comes within range, he gets targeted. It’s making them nervous, at the least.”

“After seeing what happened to that flunky of Dyran’s, I should think it would,” Liana replied, peering out one of the window-slits. “That was not a pretty way to die. Shana, the storm is beginning to break up. I think the elves are getting control back.”

Shana stifled a groan. “It had to happen sooner or later, I guess. I was just hoping it would be later. I wonder what they’re going to do next.”

She found out in very short order, as Shadow came flying up the stairs, all out of breath. “It’s Dyran.” He panted, as the unmistakable sounds of combat came from the walls. “He’s started another attack. Only this time—this time he’s got a lot of unarmed slaves, kids mostly, and he’s herding them in front of the fighters, like a shield. We have to hit them to get to his fighters.”

Shana’s gorge rose, and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. “Does Valyn know?” she asked, knowing that the young elven lord’s reaction was going to be worse than hers.

“He
was
on the walls,” Shadow said pityingly.

Shana shook her head; she felt sorry for him, but feeling sorry wasn’t going to make the army outside their gates go away. Nor was being too incapacitated by the horror of the situation to fight back.

“Anyway, they want you out there,” Shadow said, dismissing his cousin even as Shana had. “Father Dragon, that is. Me, too. And the rest of the dragons. He thinks we ought to see if we can figure out some way of getting around the slaves, or getting them out of the way first.”

“Right,” she said, without wasting another thought on Valyn. “Let’s move.”

The Kin shifted to halfblood shape, and followed Shadow out to the walls. It was easy to spot Father Dragon; he was the center of a little swarm of activity, as messengers came and went from all parts of the walls.

Shana thought he looked terribly strained, with a kind of haunted expression, especially around the eyes.

Recalling some of the entries in his journals, she suddenly knew why. This wasn’t the first time Dyran had used this particular ploy.

And the last time, the wizards hadn’t been able to save the slaves either.

“I don’t know,” he was saying to Denelor as the little group approached, lines of strain around his mouth. “None of our weapons can get to them without killing children. If the Kin shifted, we could fly in and use our shocking ability—”

Denelor shook his head emphatically. “No, no, we need to keep your existence secret as long as possible. Besides, that would put
you
within range of the elves’ magic. Dyran hasn’t used some of the worst weapons he has, but that’s because they have no effect on stone. On flesh and blood, even protected by scale, it may well be a different story.”

“What are we worried about?” Shana wanted to know. “They can fire all the arrows they want, and they aren’t going to do us any damage behind all this stone.”

“It’s getting up to the walls we’re worried about,” Parth Agon replied absently. “It’s that they could get close enough to get ladders up on the walls, or put siege engines to work on them.”

“What about getting rid of the ladders and engines?” Shana suggested. “After all, we can all call fire. That should buy us some time.”

Father Dragon’s face cleared as both Denelor and Parth nodded. “That should buy us quite a bit of time,” he said. “Possibly enough to get the rain started again. Can you gentlemen organize that?”

“Immediately,” Denelor replied. Parth was already on his way, stopping to talk to each of the wizards on the wall in turn. Denelor hurried below. As Shana shaded her eyes to peer out over the walls, wisps of smoke began rising where the siege equipment stood. Slaves rushed to put the fires out, but with relatively few pieces of siege equipment, and many wizards, several were able to concentrate on each piece. Before long, the fires were burning with fierce flames and thick, black smoke.

“Thank you, little one,” Father Dragon said quietly. Shana turned to him with surprise.

He was looking at the rising flames but clearly not watching them. “This—brings back many memories. Most, not pleasant. I feared that history would repeat itself here—so many dead—”

“Only if we’re too stupid not to learn from the past,” she said fiercely. “We won’t let that happen, not any of us, not even Parth Agon. Haven’t you seen what he’s been doing? When a personal quarrel breaks out, he’s
right there
. If it can’t be patched up—and so far, he’s been able to do that—he sees that the people involved are separated and given someone to watch them so they don’t stir up trouble. All the water and food is being purified before we use it, so they can’t sneak a plague in on us. And we are all working together.”