Elvenbane (22 page)

Oh, fewmets
. She stirred a little, and the lizard scampered off her leg and into a crevice, its tiny mind full of alarm.
It takes too much concentration; it isn’t worth it
, she decided. She was better off “listening” for Rovy and Myre, and catching them when they had shifted that way. They couldn’t hide what they were thinking. Not from Shana, anyway. Keman couldn’t hear them—but he couldn’t hear most animals, either.

It occurred to her then to wonder where Keman was. He was supposed to be joining this group about now, as soon as his lessons with Alara were over.

Suddenly, she—and the young dragons below her—doubled up with a hammer-blow of phantom pain, followed by a cry of mind-sent anguish.

Keman
! Even in a wordless mental shriek, she felt his personality. Even as she recognized him, she heard him scream again in pain—this time in a very vocal shriek that rang across the hills.

The group of startled youngsters below her “popped” back into dragon-form as they lost
their
concentration, but Shana had no thoughts or energy to waste on them. She was up and running across the ridge as fast as her paltry two legs would carry her.

At first, all she could see as she topped the ridge was Rovylern at the bottom of the cut below, wings mantling, tail lashing, neck curled as he looked down at something. Then she realized what he was looking down at, as another shriek come up from underneath him and echoed from the rocks. Rovy had Keman pinned beneath him, foreclaws clamped in the thin and sensitive skin where Keman’s forelegs and wings joined the body. Shana had to block the waves of pain coming from him; she couldn’t imagine how anyone could feel that agony and choose to ignore it.

“Say it, lizard!” Rovy hissed down at his victim, his eyes narrowed in satisfaction, spinal crest high, teeth bared in a feral grin of pleasure. “Say it! Call me Master! Say, TU do anything you want, Great

Rovylern!’ Do it, or I’ll make you think I’ve just been playing with you!”

“Go stuff your tail up your—” The rest of the insult was drowned in a howl of pain as Rovy tightened his clawhold. Keman had no intention of surrendering and submitting to Rovy, but those intentions couldn’t last much longer.

I’ll kill him! I’ll peel his scales off
! Shana couldn’t even frame coherent thoughts after the first glimpse—anger boiled up in her, and everything narrowed to her target.

A terrible, molten pressure rose in her chest, her eyes misted with a red haze, and she heard herself growling like an enraged louper.

Keman screamed, and the power exploded from her. Three rocks the size of her head erupted from the ground beside her where they lay half-buried, and launched themselves at the bully, hurtling down at him in the blink of an eye.

Shana maintained just enough sanity and control that they did
not
target his head; instead, all three
thudded
into Rovy’s midsection below the spine and just past the ribs.

They caught him off-balance when they hit him, hurling him off Keman’s back with the force of their blows, knocking the breath out of him.

He landed on his side, flailing wildly, and barely able to squeak. He beat the air with his free wing as Keman scrambled to his feet, and Shana slid down the side of the ridge in a shower of sand and stones to land beside her foster brother.

She was still white-hot with anger, and the bloody marks of Rovy’s talons on Keman’s hide did nothing to assuage that anger. Rovy clambered to his feet, staring at both of them in blank astonishment, too surprised even to move.

But Shana was not too surprised to act. She had only begun her assault. Everything Rovy had done to her or Keman burned in her memory, and she was quite prepared to take revenge for all of it.

“Bully!” she shouted, using her power to throw fist-sized rocks at his head, so he had to duck and dance to avoid them. “Coward! Fewmet! You’re a throwback, Rovy! You’re nothing but a big, dumb lizard! Pea-brain! Sneak! Sparrow-heart! Rat-face! Tail-chaser!”

Rovy’s antics as he danced about trying to avoid the hail of flying rocks were truly amazing. But Shana was faster than he was. Finally he didn’t duck quickly enough, and one of the stones caught him right above the eye, making
him
howl with pain.

“You like that?” Shana screamed, hurling a dozen stones at once, as Rovy backed up against the hillside and she followed, giving him no chance to escape. “I’ve got more where that came from! Try picking on someone your own size, Rovy, you fewmet! You big bully, I’ll show you how it feels to get picked on! I’ll beat you black and purple! I’ll—”

“Shana!”

Shana had been concentrating so hard on Rovy that she had ignored everything else, and the voice seemed to come out of nowhere, startling her so that the last few rocks dropped in midflight. A large claw clamped down on Shana’s shoulder—too large to be Keman’s.

Broken out of her fit of rage, she looked up, into Alara’s frightened face.

But behind Alara every dragon in the Lair was either winging in or scrambling over the ridge.

Foremost of those was Lori, Rovy’s mother, who landed beside her abused offspring and covered him protectively with her wings, craning her head around with the most vicious expression on her face that Shana had ever seen. Her eyes were wide with rage, her spinal crest bristling, and her teeth bared clear to the back of her jaw.

“There, you see!” she shrilled at the top of her lungs.

“You see! I told you all, and you wouldn’t listen! That
thing
is dangerous, it’s rabid, it can’t be trusted!”

“Now wait just a moment, Lori,” Keoke began, interposing his body between her and Shana, when it looked as if she was about to lunge for the girl.

“
No
!” she screamed, her eyes red with a rage as great as Shana’s had been. “No more waiting! It’s too dangerous to live!
Kill
it! Kill it now!”

THERE WAS ONLY one place in the Lair large enough to hold a Lair meeting: the huge cavern from which all the rest branched. It was full now, nearly a hundred of the Kin crowding the floor or perched on rock outcroppings or formations around the walls and rising from the floor itself. The convoluted cavern blazed with multicolored radiance, some from the magic lights kindled by the adept of the Kin, the rest reflecting in prismatic brilliance through the thousands of crystals mounted in the upper walls and ceiling.

The cavern throbbed with the cacophony of voices; the Kin that did not have an opinion on this subject were few indeed. The echoes doubled and trebled the voices, making it that much harder to hear. Alara held her peace and her temper, and let the others finish shouting themselves out. Right now there was no reasoning with the most fanatic and frightened of the Kin. Most of them had had no idea up until this moment that Shana was anything other than an exotic pet. The girl’s abilities, especially the magnitude of those abilities, had come as a tremendous shock.

Of the rest, those who had known what Shana was were divided and vocal. Lori, for one, had been screaming at the top of her lungs since the Lair meeting began; Alara had hopes that she was beginning to wear even on the tempers of her supporters.

Surely by now she must be getting hoarse, at least.

Alara spared a pitying thought for poor Shana, confined in a dead-end cavelet at the end of the main cavern, with a stone too large for her to lift blocking the entrance. They had left her alone and in the dark, and only Alara and Keoke’s presence had kept Lori from tearing her apart on the spot. Keoke had taken advantage of his position as most senior dragon present to order the confinement, pointing out that the boulder they used to stop up the entrance to the cavelet was too large for even Father Dragon to move.

That left the others thinking it was too large for Shana to lift, especially given the size of the rocks the halfblood had used on Rovy. Alara wasn’t so sure. The entire altercation with Rovylern bespoke
control
to her, not unthinking violence.

Alara considered the relatively light injuries the bully had taken. Rovy had one broken rib, a gash over his eye, and a concussion. Shana
could
have hit him in the head with any of those larger rocks, and he would have been dead. Not even a dragon could survive a blow to the skull with something that size, especially not if Shana had placed it just right. She could have taken his eye out with that rock that gashed him. The broken rib wasn’t even on the side she hit—it was on the side he had fallen on. He had probably broken it when he fell. Fire and Rain, if she had been really cruel, she could have just as easily broken his wings with those rocks, and he would have been flightless for months.

“That rabid animal broke my child’s
rib
,” Lori shrilled for at least the hundredth time. Her voice echoed off the cavern ceiling, making those nearest her wince. Alara noted with hope that even Lori’s supporters were beginning to look bored. “He’s going to be abed for a week, at least! I’m telling you, it’s gone mad, and if
you
don’t kill it, I will!”

Her voice was finally getting hoarse, the din had died down considerably, and Alara decided that now was the best time to speak. She had chosen a position atop one of the rock formations, but had been reclining on it, with the result that she was relatively inconspicuous. As she raised her head and mantled her wings, heads swiveled in her direction.

“Your precious child—who is
not
a child by the definition of the Kin—was assaulting Shana’s foster brother, who
is
still a child by that same definition,” she said coldly and clearly, trumpeting her own accusation out over the general hubbub. Silence descended immediately; even Lori was caught off-guard, and stared with her mouth open in surprise. “Keman will not be flying for
several
weeks, thanks to Rovylern, and he walks only with pain. I suggest you consider
that
, Kin! Rovylern instigated the trouble—Shana only came to her foster brother’s rescue.”

“But—” Lori cried weakly.

Alara spoke right over her, trying to make her words sound calm and reasoned. “Keman weighs a third less than Rovy. Shana weighs—perhaps!—a hundredth of what Rovylern does. Do those odds
sound, fair
to you?”

“But—but that
thing
has magic!” Lori squawked. “It used
magic
on Rovy! It could have killed him! Even
you
don’t know what it can do! It’s a halfblood, and no one knows what they can do, and you can’t claim otherwise!”

Alara nodded. “Yes, she does have the halfblood powers of magic. No, I do not know what she can do with them. But I think, given the situation, she showed admirable restraint.”

Lori subsided sullenly and the cavern held a silence so profound it hurt the ears. Keoke spoke into the silence, breaking it gently. “The problem is, Alara, we don’t know whether it was restraint, or accident. We have only the halfblood’s word that her weapons were aimed, and did not hit random targets. That simply isn’t good enough.”

Orola followed his speech, clearing her throat. All eyes went to her, she took advantage of the attention by standing up and towering over the rest. “Lori, your son got exactly what he deserved,” the Elder said firmly. “I’ll have you know that I was winging in to thrash him myself. I may yet, if he shows no sign of learning his lesson. I heard most of what he said, and he should by rights be punished for it.
No
dragon calls another ‘Master.’ We left all that behind us, and I
will
not tolerate anyone bringing it back again.”

Elated by this unexpected support from the most senior dragon in the Lair, Alara’s hopes for getting Shana out of this predicament lifted.

But those hopes were dashed by Orola’s next words.

“But Keoke is right, Alara,” she continued, turning her soft gold eyes on her. “I know you’re fond of the halfblood, and I know Keman considers it his foster sister, but it
isn’t
one of the Kin and we both know it. The real problem is that what we do not know if whether it really did aim its power as it claims. If it’s telling the truth, well and good; it showed restraint that was utterly admirable. But if not—the next time it’s angered, it could kill. We can’t take that chance, Alara. We simply cannot.”

No—no, this wasn’t
right
, it wasn’t fair—

“Kill it!” Lori snarled. “It’s a rabid beast!” She flexed her claws against the stone with a scraping sound everyone in the cavern heard clearly.

Anoa interrupted before Alara could reply to that. “Killing is out of the question,” she said flatly, as the other two seniors nodded agreement. “No matter what you, Lori—and some of the rest—may think, the child is
not
a beast. I’ve taken the form of the elven lords and their human slaves and walked about in their world, as has Alara, often enough to know. Lori, you and those backing you have not and will not. You either haven’t the skill or the inclination—and no one who has not been there has any basis for making a judgment.”

The dragons who
did
take other forms nodded vigorously. Lori glowered; the rest looked elsewhere.

Anoa waited, then continued, her voice soft and rational. “I speak from experience. The humans are as intelligent—or as stupid—as the best and the worst of the Kin. They are not animals. The elves are formidable, more than you imagine, and the reason for the unwritten Law against revealing our existence to them is that they could destroy us if they chose. Yet history tells us that the
Halfbloods
came very near to destroying
them
.” Anoa paused, allowing her statements to have their full impact. “No, Lori, that potential for destruction is not found among animals. But you are right in this: That very potential is terribly dangerous, and I think the child has gone past our ability to control her.”

Heads nodding all around the meeting put an end to Alara’s hopes of gaining support for her position. They were going to throw Shana out, into a world she knew nothing about, into the hands of those who would kill the child if they discovered what Shana was. What could she do? What could she possibly do?

Keoke stood as Anoa lay back down. “Alara, I think that you are going to have to rid us of that danger, by ridding us of the child.” Alara surged to her feet, her spinal crest a-bristle, but Keoke stared her down. She settled herself again, but unwillingly, her wings mantling. “I do
not
mean that you should kill her, but she simply cannot stay here, or even in the vicinity of the Lair. You’re going to have to allow us to turn her out into the world. If she is half as remarkable as you claim she is, she’ll be fine.”

But she isn’t ready
! Alara wanted to exclaim. I
haven’t told her anything
about
that world! She doesn’t even know that there are any real two-leggers alive except herself!

But she said none of this. There was more at stake than just Shana’s fate—if she protested, she would lose face with many of the Kin. And that would cost her dearly in respect as a shaman. And in the end, it would gain Shana nothing. The Kin were determined to exile the child—no matter what she said or did in the girl’s defense.

She held in her anger, but it was harder to rein in her despair…

“Father Dragon said when you brought her to us that she had great
hamenleai”
Keoke continued, his tail lashing restlessly, so that those nearest him moved out of range. “You rightly reminded us of that not long ago. We will give her a chance to prove that. I think we should take her out to the desert, near the caravan trails, and leave her there. I know the Law, but I don’t feel that anything she tells the humans will matter. When she is found by humans, if she is, they will take anything she says about the Kin as the ravings of a creature with sun-sickness. She has the ability to find water. If she is more than simply a bright animal, she will be able to save herself, and her potential for making changes occur will be well exercised among the humans.”

“And if she is the ‘animal’ that Lori claims she is,” Anoa interjected dryly, “she won’t save herself, and there is no harm done.”

“Shouldn’t I do this?” Alara asked desperately, looking frantically for a single chance to give Shana the information she needed before she was abandoned to her fate, whatever that might be. And her death, Alara thought bleakly, if they recognized her for what she was…

“No!” Lori shouted, before someone buffeted her with a wing to shut her up.

Keoke shook his head, and light rippled down his neck in liquid waves. “Lori’s right in this much, Alara,” he told the shaman. “You’ve spent more than enough time with this halfblood as it is. An inordinate amount of time, really, considering all your duties. You have functions and responsibilities, and there
are
those among us who think you might have wasted some of the time you could have spent on fulfilling those duties in tending this fosterling of yours. No, we’ll take care of the child. You deal with your own son and daughter, and your office.”

Alara bowed her head in submission; she wanted to scream in angry protest that to be a shaman was to be contrary—but she knew, now, that there was a fine line between being contrary and being enough of an annoyance to be looked on as a danger.

That put an end to the meeting, for all practical purposes. There was a certain amount more of discussion—mostly involving Lori, who was
not
pleased with the outcome, nor with the censure her son had incurred. But in the end, she left, defeated and unsatisfied.

Alara returned to her lair and Keman, with a heavy heart. She had not even been permitted to bid Shana good-bye.

She stood in the sunlight outside the entrance to her home and watched Keoke taking off, something small clutched in his right foreclaw. That something was her fosterling, bearing nothing with her except the tunic she wore.

Alara could hardly bear to watch—and yet she could not look away. Forbidden even to speak mind-to-mind with the halfblood, she bid Shana a silent, sorrowful farewell, her eyes burning and her stomach knotted with sorrow and loss.

My little one
—
my poor, innocent little one
—She stared after them, long after Keoke had vanished into the blue glare of the cloudless sky, wishing with all her heart that there was something she could have done to prevent all this. Then she descended into the cool depths of the caverns, wondering how she was going to break the news to Keman.

Shana spent most of her captivity crying, both from anger and from fear. Anger at the injustice of it all—and fear of what they might do to her.

The cave they’d left her in was cold and unfinished; they hadn’t even made a light to leave with her. They hadn’t let Alara near her, and no one would tell her where Keman was or even how he fared.

It was all so unfair! Rovy outweighed her
and
Keman together—he was a known bully and troublemaker, and there wasn’t a single one of the young dragons (except, perhaps, Myre) who didn’t rejoice in the fact that someone had at long last given
him
a trouncing.

And Rovy had transgressed far more than Keman had five years ago—he’d been inflicting damage on the younger dragon that could easily have been permanent. Yet she was being confined as if
she
had done something vile!

But that was not the worst aspect of this miscarriage of justice; she’d heard Lori’s shrill calls for her death—Lori had been against her from the beginning, and there were plenty of the Kin who agreed with her. Shana didn’t
think
Foster Mother would let them kill her—

But the idea was enough to frighten her into tears long after her anger had faded away.

She couldn’t make out anything of what was being said, out there in the big cavern. The voices echoed too much. She heard her name from time to time, and Rovy’s, and Keman’s, but that was all.

Finally the noise died down, and she heard only murmuring; she waited for someone to come and tell her what was going to be done with her. It seemed to take forever as she crouched on the cold, bare stone in near-darkness, with only a bit of light leaking around the rock they had used to cover the entrance to her prison.