Shadows of Moth (31 page)

And yet, through
this pain, their labors bore fruit. Piles of arrowheads, spearheads,
and swords rose in wagons, shipped off to war.

Thus
we die,
Koyee thought, swinging the pick.
Working
to slay our own people.

They worked. They
suffered. They died. And sometimes . . . sometimes they fought.

One turn it was a
young man, though he looked old now, who shouted in agony, tears in
his eyes, and swung his pickaxe at a guard. The Magerian only
laughed, dodged the blow, and knocked the Elorian down. That turn,
the Magerians enjoyed hanging the prisoner above the canyon, only to
lower the rope instants before death, allow the man to recover, then
tighten the noose again. It was hours before the man died as the
other prisoners toiled below, hearing the gasps, knowing this would
be their fate too should they rebel.

Yet another
prisoner, a diminutive woman with large indigo eyes, shouted the next
turn after watching her son collapse. She too attacked a guard, and
her pickaxe hit the man's armor, denting the steel. The Magerians
beat her to death, laughing as she bled.

How
can we fight them?
Koyee thought, chipping out the iron ore, one chunk after another.
We
are weak, nearly starving, dying. They wear armor, and they carry
shields and swords.
She lowered her head.
It's
a fight we can't win.

Yet
as the turns went by, she realized:
We
must fight nonetheless.

The next time they
entered the cave to sleep, she began whispering of her plans.

"Gather,
friends." She gestured for them to approach. "Gather, hear
me."

The prisoners lay
across the cave like discarded rags, so weak they could barely raise
their heads. The cave was small; the prisoners covered the floor,
leaving no room to spare. They barely seemed human to Koyee, only
ravaged things, half-alive. They reminded her of the plague victims
she had seen in the Hospice of Pahmey, still drawing breath but only
a mockery of true life. She could clearly see the bones and joints of
her fellow prisoners; their skin hid nothing. Their eyes peered, huge
and glazed, from bald, skull-like heads. She no longer knew man from
woman, child from adult; all had become sickly, starving, dying
things.

Now
we truly look like the worms they always called us,
Koyee thought.

"Come,
friends, gather near."

They crawled toward
her, the stronger dragging the weak. A few only raised their heads,
blinking, uttering silent words. Koyee struggled onto her stick-thin
legs. She stared around her, meeting gaze after gaze.

"We've been
here for over a moon," she said. "If we do nothing, we will
die here. So many of us have died already, and I no longer believe
help will come to us. If we fight, our fate will be the same."
She tried to make a fist, but she was too weak to close her fingers.
"If only death awaits us, we can still choose how to die. And I
say we die fighting. Together."

One of the
prisoners, an Elorian youth named Baoshi, struggled to his feet too.
He leaned over for a moment, coughed, and finally righted himself. He
met Madori's gaze. Sweat dripped off his forehead, and the glaze of
illness coated his eyes, but he managed to nod.

"I will fight
with you, Koyee," he said. "I know of your tales. You are
the great heroine of the first war. The Girl in the Black Dress. The
Rider of Dragons. The Slayer of Ferius." He turned to look at
the others. "She is a heroine. We must follow her. She will lead
us to victory."

Another prisoner, a
man named Chenduon, shook his head. "She will lead us to death."
He coughed, holding his frail chest. "I do not want to die a
hero. I want to live as long as I can. Maybe aid will arrive. Maybe
Emperor Jin will send a great army to free us."

The younger Baoshi
laughed bitterly. "You are delirious. There is no aid for us;
the emperor might be dead, all his halls fallen." He shuddered.
"I was in Pahmey. I saw the mages of sunlight sink the whole
city into the pit. Now I envy those who fell. And I do not believe
there is hope for aid. All of Eloria must have fallen, not only
Qaelin but Ilar and Leen too. Perhaps we are the last Elorians
alive."

A woman struggled
to her feet—Shinquon, once a fisherman's wife. "If all Eloria
is fallen, maybe the sunlit masters will show us mercy." A tear
streamed into her sunken cheek. "They will no longer need
weapons if their war is won. Maybe they will soon free us." She
turned to glare at Koyee. "I too want to stay alive as long as
possible. Every turn that we still live brings hope, if only a
whisper of hope. If we fight, we know for certain that we die."

Young Baoshi spun
toward the woman, then had to lean down for a moment, coughing.
Finally he managed to speak again. "I'm willing to die fighting.
But perhaps we will win." He looked at Koyee. "Right,
Koyee? We have a chance to win, do we not? I believe."

Koyee sighed. She
looked around her. Everyone was now watching from across the cave.
She spoke softly. "Our hope to defeat our masters is as small as
our hope for rescue. I believe that there is almost no hope at all. I
will not lie to you; I would lead you to fight not because I think we
can win, but because I prefer to die fighting, to die proud, to show
them—with our last breath—that we are no worms, that we are proud
Elorians, proud children of darkness. But if hope drives you, and if
hope is what helps you swing a pick at a soldier, then cling to that
hope. Foster it. Because even though hope is small, barely more than
a speck, I do not believe that hope is ever dead. We were born in the
night, and more than anyone, we know this: Even in the greatest
darkness there is some light. Even beyond the greatest fear there is
courage. Even in the greatest pain there is joy."

Their eyes gleamed
with tears. Koyee had to close her own eyes; seeing them looking at
her, finding hope in her, was suddenly too much. She was a woman now
with a grown daughter, and she was a leader, a heroine and legend, so
why did she so often still feel like a child? Even now, she often
felt no older, no braver, than that youth who had sailed alone upon
the Inaro River, an orphan girl more than twenty years ago. Back
then, she had sought the aid of others—from leaders, from soldiers,
from emperors. She had relied on so many others to teach her—on
Little Maniko and his courage, Empress Hikari and her strength, and
Shenlai the dragon for his wisdom. Always there had been somebody
older, somebody wiser and stronger, somebody to guide her. Yet all
those souls had died, and now she was the wise one, the one others
approached for leadership. And the weight nearly crushed her.

Inside
I still feel like a child . . . somebody who needs leadership in
others. How can I now lead them, give them the strength and wisdom
others gave me?

She looked at them.
They nodded, one by one.

"When the moon
is gone from the sky, and the Timandrians' eyes are weakest, we
attack together," Koyee said. "We will raise our pickaxes.
And we will swing them not at stone but at our oppressors. We will
slay them or we will die as heroes, and any who survive this war will
sing of our courage for eternity."

* * * * *

Jitomi
stood on the prow of the
Tai
Lar
—the
Waterfire—
the
new flagship of his armada. Behind him sailed hundreds of ships, the
might of his empire. Ahead, flowing down the dark waters of the
Inaro, sailed the sunlit fleet.

"Now the true mettle of the
night will be tested," Jitomi said. "Now the might of the
Red Flame will be judged not by burning fellow Elorians . . . but by
facing an empire of sunlight."

Lord
Dorashi, Captain of the
Tai
Lar
,
stood beside him. A gruff man of fifty years, Dorashi wore crimson
armor, the bulky plates tasseled and engraved with black dragon
motifs. His face was leathery, his eyes hard and narrowed. A thick
white mustache drooped over his thin mouth. His shoulders were broad,
his helmet horned. His family ruled the distant, southern coast of
Ilar, and they had long been aligned with the Hashido nobles,
Jitomi's family from the northern peninsula.

"We will smash through
them," Captain Dorashi said. "The Red Flame Armada has
never been stronger, and Tianlong flies with us."

The leathery captain raised his
eyes skyward. Jitomi followed his gaze. Clouds hid the moon and
stars, and in the darkness, Tianlong was but a shadow, a coiling
serpent of the night. The dragon's red beard fluttered like a banner,
a hint of red like blood staining the clouds.

This
battle I will fight upon the water,
Jitomi thought.
With
my people. One among them.

He had removed his mage's robes,
and now he wore the armor of an Ilari warrior—armor he had once
refused to don. Now he bore a katana and shield. Now he led an
empire, a nation. Now he fought for all the night.

The Radian fleet sailed closer,
moving toward them across the mile-wide river. Hundreds of carracks
sailed there, their white sails sporting the golden eclipse of the
Radian Order. Cannons lined their hulls, the knowledge of their
construction stolen from Eloria in the last war. Lanterns hung from
their masts, casting light upon thousands of archers and swordsmen.
This force had smashed the towns and cities along the river, moving
south, crushing all in its path, devastating Qaelin, the mainland of
Eloria.

They
stop here,
Jitomi thought.

He
turned to look behind him. Hundreds of Ilari warriors stood upon the
deck of the
Tai
Lar:
swordsmen all in steel, gunners manning their cannons, and even
riders astride growling black panthers. A pagoda rose from the deck,
three tiers tall, and archers stood within it, bows ready. Behind the
Tai Lar
sailed many more ships, all ready for battle.

"Ilar!" Jitomi
shouted. He drew his katana and raised the blade. "Sons of Ilar,
hear me! I am Jitomi Hashido, Emperor of the Red Flame. An enemy of
sunlight approaches. The Radian Empire which has deceived us, which
has slain our brothers, sails to crush us. We will smash the enemy!
For the Red Flame and for Eloria, we will triumph!"

They roared, thousands of
voices. Thousands of swords rose. Thousands of horned, demonic
helmets blazed in the light of torches. Above, the dragon Tianlong
let out his cry.

Captain Dorashi raised a red
banner. "Smoke!" he roared. "Light the dragons!"

Across the Ilari fleet, men lit
the dragon figureheads of their ships. Black and yellow smoke rose
from the iron jaws, scented of sulfur, obscuring their locations.
Ilari warriors loved fighting in shadows and smoke, hidden, smashing
through their blinded enemies.

Jitomi turned to face the north
again. He could see only smoke now, not the enemy fleet. But he could
hear the Radians. Their war drums boomed. Their horns blared. Their
voices shouted out as one: "Radian rises! Radian rises!"

Jitomi
squared his jaw.
For
the darkness. And for Madori. For the woman I love.

He stepped closer to the prow.
He shouted at the top of his lungs. "Fire!"

Fire
crackled. Black smoke blasted out. Ahead of Jitomi, the dragon
figurehead of the
Tai
Lar
blasted out fire. The ship shook. A cannonball shot through the
smoke, cutting a path of clear sky. A ship emerged from the clouds
ahead, and an instant later, the cannonball slammed into its hull.

A thousand other cannons blasted
from both fleets.

Fire and sound washed over the
world.

One
cannonball slammed into the
Tai
Lar
's
hull only feet away from Jitomi. The iron-clad ship shook madly.
Jitomi nearly fell. For an instant he thought the hull had collapsed,
but its iron flanks had withstood the blow. A dozen other cannons
fired upon the deck. Men screamed. Fire blazed across the Radians'
wooden ships.

"Archers!" Jitomi
cried. "Fire!"

Flaming arrows flew through the
night to slice through the enemy's canvas sails. The sails burst into
flame, and firelight lit the darkness. Enemy arrows flew in response,
and Jitomi raised his shield. Flaming projectiles slammed against
him, shattering against his shield and armor and peppering the deck
around him.

Cannons blasted again. The
fleets kept sailing toward each other . . . then crashed together
with blood and flame.

A
Radian ship rammed into the
Tai
Lar
,
its figurehead denting the iron starboard. The
Tai
Lar
's
own figurehead scraped across the enemy's weaker hull, scattering
shards of wood. Planks drove down from ship to ship, and soldiers
charged into battle.

Jitomi grimaced as two Radian
swordsmen ran toward him, swinging longswords—blades heavier and
longer than his katana. He chose and claimed one man's sword, then
heated the hilt; the soldier screamed and dropped the weapon. The
second soldier thrust his blade, and Jitomi blocked the blow with his
shield, then swung his katana upwards. He drove the blade into the
man's armpit where his armor was weak, and blood showered. Another
swing of the katana and the man fell.

All
around Jitomi upon the
Tai
Lar
's
deck, soldiers of day and night battled. Men raced across the planks
or swung upon ropes from deck to deck. All across the Inaro, ships
burned, archers fired, cannons blasted, and men thrashed in the
water. Tianlong roared above, dipping down to slam through enemy
hulls, sending the ships into the water.

"Drive through them!"
Captain Dorashi was howling, holding a bloody katana in each hand.
"Smash the enemy!"

Arrows sailed overhead from the
ship's pagoda. Men screamed and blood washed the deck.

Jitomi swung his
blade again and again, parrying, killing. One arrow punched through
his armor and entered his arm. He growled but kept fighting with
blade and magic. All around him, the fire lit the night and the blood
painted the river red.