The Rite (25 page)

Dorn surprised himself by smiling. It made the human side of his face hurt, and he realized that he, too, was burned to some degree.

mean it,” Cantoule said. “Nobody’s infallible. The dragons would have slaughtered us all tendays ago if it weren’t for you and Raryn.”

“They would have butchered us today if you hadn’t killed the magma drake. With your empty hand no less. I can’t believe this Kane you so admire could have done any better.”

“Ilmater lent me his strength. To him belongs the glory.” Then Cantoule grinned a grin that, just for a moment, made him look as boyish as the youngest of the novices in his charge. “It was a nice technique, though, wasn’t it?”

The Monastery of the Yellow Rose was so huge that, even after the dragons had spent two days demolishing portions of it, plenty of spacious halls, chapels, and galleries remained. The majority of the wyrms, many of whom customarily laired in caves and ruins, had accordingly chosen to quarter themselves indoors, and Chatulio was glad. When everyone had camped on the mountain, out in the open air, he’d worried that someone would grow curious about the black who kept drifting from one clique of dragons to the next. With walls obscuring his movements, spreading suspicion and rancor was somewhat less dangerous, though he would have persisted no matter how great the risk.

The Rage was sinking its talons into him once again, alternately manifesting itself as an urge to attack Sammaster’s minions and as an almost uncontrollable need to laugh when a gullible chromatic swallowed one of his lies. He wanted to see his labors bear fruit before his reason crumbled.

So he whispered, insinuated, and aspersed through the night. Following the failure of the day’s assault, the wyrms were in a vile humor and eager to believe any calumny. The only drakes he stayed clear of were Malazan and Ishenalyr. He feared that they, the most powerful, would see through his illusory disguise, or failing that, recognize his true intentions. But with luck, other dragons would repeat his lies to both the red and the hidecarved green.

Just after dawn, Malazan roared, summoning everyone forth from his repose. Her call led her underlings to a garden, still bright and fragrant with gold, crimson, and purple flowers despite all the trampling it had endured. It was one of the few places in the stronghold spacious enough to hold the entire horde comfortably.

Malazan perched on the roof of a shrine with a marble statue of Ilmater, complete with scars and twisted limbs, inside. The structure was only barely large enough to support her. Those wyrms who obeyed her not merely out of fear but because they trusted her leadership congregated around her. Many were reds and fire drakes.

Ishenalyr took up a position at the opposite end of the garden, and those who wished he were commander assembled around him. Most were other greens and the like, wyrms whose essential natures partook of earth and stone instead of flame.

A third group of dragons stood apart from the other two. These were drakes who hadn’t chosen a side, and as Chatulio hurried to join them, he was pleased to see they numbered only a few.

“It is time to speak,” said Malazan without preamble, “of stupidity, cowardice, and disloyalty.”

Ishenalyr snorted, masking the scent of the flowers with the sharp smell of his acidic breath.

“By all means,” said the green, “let’s speak of stupidity. Of war captains devoid of cunning.”

Malazan’s throat swelled with the threat of fire and she said, “It was your witless suggestion to tunnel into the mountain.”

“It nearly worked. It did work as well as the series of frontal assaults you ordered, exactly where the humans expected us to come… where they built their ramparts and laid their snares.”

“My way enables us to bring more of our strength to bear at once. It’s pushing the monks deeper and deeper into the vaults. Soon they’ll have nowhere left to retreat. Soon we’ll reach the books Sammaster wants destroyed, and we will have won.”

“How many of us will die in the meantime?”

“Three of us perished today, attempting your scheme, and I notice that one was the magma drake, and the other, a red.” “What are you implying?”

“That as usual, you and your kind hold back, and leave the dragons of flame to bear the brunt of the fighting.”

“Nonsense,” Ishenalyr said, “It was just bad luck the red didn’t make it out of the tunnel before it collapsed. Either that, or he was a weakling.”

The dragons massed around Malazan bristled.

Looking at all those glaring eyes and oared fangs, Ishenalyr belatedly recalled the prudence for which he was known.

“Great lady,” he said, “this squabbling accomplishes nothing. You’re the leader. I’ve never disputed that. I simply sought to aid our campaign by devising a new tactic. If our, best diggers had survived, I might suggest we try it again, but as it stands, the point is moot. Instead of casting recriminations, why don’t we consider our next move?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Malazan replied. “To grovel to my face, only to resume conspiring against me as soon as my back is turned.”

The green rolled his eyes. “What do you require of me, then? How can I convince you your apprehensions are groundless?”

Malazan sneered. Ulf you mean what you say, give me your submission. Open your mind and spirit to me, and let me bind them with enchantment.”

It was the turn of Ishenalyr and his faction to glower, hiss, and dig their talons restlessly in the turf.

“You can’t be serious,” the hidecarved said. “No wyrm would permit another to so enslave him.”

“You will,” said Malazan, “or you’ll leave this place. But if you forsake our endeavor, you’ll forfeit your hopes of becoming a dracolich. Sammaster’s lackeys will never transform a deserter.”

“I think,” said the green, “that I’ll have to avail myself of another option: to slay you. Sammaster won’t care who leads our force to victory. He’ll reward me as readily as you.”

Malazan laughed, and a glaze of blood seeped across her deep red scales.

“So be it, then,” said the great red dragon. “I’d hoped to put off killing you for a while longer. I thought you could be useful in your way. But oh, how I’ve yearned for the moment when I could finally burn away your insolence.”

With a crack, she unfurled her gigantic wings, casting much of the garden into shadow, and leaped into the air. Ishenalyr took flight a split second later.

Chatulio studied the wyrms who’d given their allegiance to either the colossal red or her rune-scarred rival. if only they’d follow their chieftains’ lead and fight each other, it might mean the salvation of the monastery.

For a moment, as they crouched, showed their fangs, spread their wings, it looked as if it was going to happen. Then one of the uncommitted wyrms, a spurred and fork-tailed fang dragon, flapped its stubby wings and leaped between the two factions.

“No!” it snarled. “There’s no need for all of us to battle. Malazan and Ishenalyr will settle the issue, one way or the other.”

The other reptiles hesitated, then, warily, a bit at a time, abandoned their aggressive postures.

Chatulio felt a bitter disappointment, which threatened to warp into fury, into an overwhelming need to assault the fang wyrm. Shivering, struggling to quell the anger, he gazed upward at the aerial duel.

Malazan and Ishenalyr climbed, wheeled, and snarled incantations. Magic droned through the air, and a web of glowing red strands shimmered into existence around the hidecarved’s body, tangling and constricting his wings. He plummeted.

But not far. He abandoned the half-completed spell he’d been reciting to rattle off a different word of power, whereupon his fall slowed to a gentle drift downward, as if he were no heavier than dandelion fluff. He thrashed, squirmed, and wriggled his head and neck free of the luminous scarlet strands.

Malazan roared, swooped over him, and spewed her flaming breath as she streaked past. Chatulio could feel the heat of the flare even from the ground, and winced in involuntary sympathy. It seemed impossible that Ishenalyr or any other creature could survive such a devastating attack.

But the green did endure, and twisting his neck, responded with a blast of his own toxic, corrosive breath weapon. The plume of vapor washed over the underside of Malazan’s body, and after she passed, Chatulio saw that Ishenalyr was unscathed. Some enchantment, or power granted him by his hidecarved mysteries, evidently rendered him impervious to his enemy’s fire. Malazan, conversely, bore burns on her belly, legs, wings, and tail. The shock of having been wounded made her momentarily clumsy as she wheeled and climbed..

Ishenalyr heaved himself clear of the net of light, beat his wings, and rattled off another incantation. Rain hammered down from the empty air above Malazan, and she roared at the searing acidic barrage before swooping clear.

She hurtled at Ishenalyr, plainly trying to close with him and bring her fangs and talons to bear. The green fled before her, leading her out over the shining whiteness of the glacier.

His voice faint with distance, Ishenalyr snarled a rhyming spell with which Chatulio was unfamiliar. It made something happen—the copper felt magic prickle over his scales—but he couldn’t tell what.

Meanwhile, Malazan declaimed her own incantation. The wispy cirrus clouds streaking the sky grumbled and flickered in sympathy with the spell, just as if they were thunderheads. Plainly, if the red couldn’t burn her foe with fire, she meant to do it with lightning.

But when the dazzling, twisting bolt leaped into being, it didn’t blast across the intervening distance to strike Ishenalyr. Originating a yard or two in front of Malazan’s jaws, it stabbed backward to blaze though her head and down the length of her body, illuminating her from inside like a paper lantern, casting the shadows of her bones. As she convulsed, Chatulio surmised that Ishenalyr’s most recent charm had been magic devised to turn an attack spell back on its caster.

For a moment or two, Malazan’s wings beat spastically, out of time with one another, and she lost altitude before she managed to level off. Ishenalyr wheeled, flew over her, and spat his smoky breath weapon.

The fumes washed over her mask, charring her crimson scales, and she screeched in pain. But then she gave chase, and when Ishenalyr veered, she compensated. Evidently she’d squinched her featureless, radiant yellow eyes shut in time to save her sight.

But, Chatulio wondered, did it matter? Malazan had sustained ghastly injuries, and had yet to score on her opponent.

Above the monastery, Ishenalyr wheeled back around toward his pursuer. He’d decided it was time for another attack. Malazan’s throat swelled. She cocked her head in the manner of a drake intending to use a breath weapon.

Chatulio wondered if injury and rage had so addled her she no longer recalled that her flame was useless against the hidecarved. Then, a trickster himself, he sensed that she was trying to outfox her adversary.

Shrewd and wary as he was, Ishenalyr should have sensed it as well. But red dragons had the power to tamper with an enemy’s mind, and perhaps she employed that ability as, leathery, purple-edged wings pounding, she hurtled closer. Or maybe, after hurting Malazan so badly while coming off entirely unscathed himself, the hidecarved felt too utterly

case, it was obvious from the way he slowed, simply floating on the wind, that he was inviting her assault. He wanted to draw her close so he could land a particularly devastating riposte.

Malazan spat her flame. It crackled over Ishenalyr’s serpentine body, and he howled in shock. At some point, the red had surreptitiously cast a spell to invest her breath with some crippling power in addition to its heat.

Ishenalyr still didn’t look hurt, though, merely stunned and shaken. He raised one wing high and tipped the other low, veering off, trying to distance himself from Malazan until he could recover his composure.

With a sudden burst of speed, the like of which she hadn’t exhibited hitherto—had she also cast a charm to make herself fly faster?—the gigantic red streaked after her foe and plunged her talons into his body. Clinging to him, she seized the root of one emerald wing in her jaws, bit down, and sheared the limb away from the hidecarved’s shoulder.

Tangled together, ripping at one another, they dropped. Malazan beat her wings in an effort to slow their descent. They slammed down on the apex of a peaked roof with a prodigious crash, tumbled down the side, and fell on to the ground.

The duelists sprang to their feet and assailed one another with tooth and claw. As they struck and scrabbled, Ishenalyr’s wounds began to heal, new scaly jade hide sealing over the gashes and stanching the flow of blood.

Chatulio thought that, Malazan’s superior strength and size notwithstanding, the hidecarved, with his regenerative capabilities, still possessed the advantage. Eventually he was going to wear the red down, especially since she was still susceptible to his occasional blast of searing, poisonous breath.

But no matter how he tore and burned her, Malazan wouldn’t fall, wouldn’t stop lunging at him. She shredded his mask and neck, he healed them, and she did it again. The cuts began to close once more.

Malazan lunged. Chatulio realized the red had discerned that her foe had to concentrate briefly to mend his hurts, and during that instant, he was slower. Vulnerable. Catching the base of his neck in her jaws, she heaved him onto his back, sprang onto his chest, held him pinned with her forefeet, and clawed with the back ones, Ringing chunks of bloody flesh and lengths of broken rib.

She plunged her head into the enormous wound she’d created. When she lifted it, she clasped Ishenalyr’s heart in her fangs. She turned, displaying it to all the assembled dragons, then chewed it to rags and swallowed it down.

“I lead here!” she bellowed. “I, Malazan! Who disputes me?”

The other wyrms lowered their heads in submission. All of them but Chatulio.

He knew he ought to do the same. But really, Malazan just looked too ridiculous, striking imperious poses while burned to a crisp and sliced to ribbons. Snickering welled up in his throat. He tried to hold it in, but to no avail. In another moment, he was shrieking with laughter.