Forged by Fire (20 page)
Keau came to collect me at dawn, with the news that the daronpuis’ compound had been secured, Tansan was alive, and Lupini Xxamer Zu was being held hostage, unharmed.
One of Keau’s hands was heavily swathed in fine white fabric crusted with dried blood. He held up his wounded hand and grinned through bloodied lips, revealing a mouth ful of broken and missing teeth. “Lost a finger, hey, but gained a knife.”
My eyes dropped to his waist. Incongruous against his simple loincloth, a gilded scabbard studded with chunks of turquoise hung from his hip. I recognized the scabbard at once. It belonged to the lordling who’d come trolling for Tansan during my second night in the arbiyesku.
“I didn’t know you knew how to kill a man,” I said to Keau, hating the grin on his face and my own glimmer of satisfied vengeance at knowing the lordling was dead.
Keau shrugged. His grin didn’t fade in the slightest. “There were two of us to his one.”
Once she knew her mother was alive, Savga agreed to remain in the arbiyesku compound and not accompany me; after all, she had much to tell Oblan and Runami about her flight upon dragonback and her adventures in the jungle. I was amazed by the innocence and resiliency of the child.
The dragonmaster, however, insisted on joining me.
Wind blew from the southwest, carrying the muddy smell of the Clutch river and the charred, ashy smell of a spent fire. Overhead, the sky was a sea of warm steel. To the southeast, the blur of the jungle mountains was shadowed by black cloud. We jogged toward the center of the Clutch, firing questions at Keau.
“How many were killed?” I asked.
Again, Keau beamed. “It was a good night; the Infinite Winged was kind. Already we pile the bodies.”
“Dump ’em in the egg stables; give ’em to the brooders,” the dragonmaster replied. “They need a good feed.”
The smile died on Keau’s face. How inconsistent that he could kill a man without guilt, but was appalled at the thought of feeding the corpse to a dragon.
I ignored the dragonmaster. “I was asking how many of the myazedo were killed.”
“None.” Keau clutched his hand to his chest as he loped along. He was breathing heavily and sweating profusely. His cheeks were pale, the green whorls standing out in stark contrast. He probably shouldn’t have been running. “Some were wounded badly, but our attack was good. Like wolves, we were. Fast, deadly. A good attack.”
Bandit warfare. People looking to plunder and rape the aristocrats. That’s not what makes rebellion successful, blood-blood!
We loped across the soft, dusty grasses in silence after that, until we reached the bayen thoroughfare. We slowed to a walk.
A few windows had been smashed, and one mansion had been gutted by fire, its white stone exterior streaked with oily black, plumes of smoke rising from its roofless skull. I shivered; truly, the One Dragon had looked kindly upon us. Such a fire, throwing sparks high into the night on the windy plains, could have easily set the whole Clutch ablaze.
“An overturned lantern,” Keau said. “A mistake.”
“We were lucky,” I said grimly.
“We are careful,” Keau said, and he nodded with his chin at a group of soot-streaked men in loincloths. They wore blackened cloth over their mouths and bayen boots on their feet, and they held shovels and hoes in their grimy hands.
“Myazedo?” I asked.
“Serfs, gathered from friends and family of the myazedo.”
I saw a child’s face up in the window of a mansion, peer ing out from behind a curtain: a girl, black haired and ivory-skinned and seven years old at most. Our eyes met. She quickly disappeared.
“The bayen women and children are still in their homes?”
“Yes,” Keau said. “Some of their servants stay with them; some are alone. They have food enough in their cellars, and water in their cisterns. Each of these houses has a cistern that servants must keep full; did you know?” His eyes were wide with amazement.
But for how long will their servants stay with them? I wondered.
At the far end of the thoroughfare, another group of Djimbi worked. Vultures and carrion birds flew high over head in great, wide circles. The smell of piss and blood and death and shit wafted on the breeze. Corpses were being added to a grisly heap of bodies on the road. The corpses had been stripped of all belongings. Arms and legs jutted out from the tangle.
I wondered if the bayen child in the window could see her father’s body in that heap. I fervently hoped not.
We turned down an alley and came out on the market square. A crowd had gathered near the entrance gate of the daronpuis’ compound, mostly young boys and old men and women. They squatted or stood in clusters and appeared to be waiting for something with a serf’s typical patience. Their eyes watched us as we approached them. Myazedo fighters with bayen steel on their hips guarded the gates from inside the daronpuis’ stockade.
As we wove through the crowd, people shuffled aside, si lent, watchful. One of the myazedo within nodded at Keau and swung the iron gate open. We were ushered in without question or comment.
“Why the crowd?” I asked Keau. I’d lowered my voice; I couldn’t say why.
Again, another of his nonchalant shrugs. “They’ve heard about the liberation. Maybe they wait for the eggs and meat and grain stored in the daronpuis’ cellars, or maybe their brothers or uncles have volunteered to gather bodies and they wait for the robes and boots from the dead.”
Even as he spoke, an old Djimbi man crossed one of the stony bridges that humped over the dusty, nonexistent ponds within the stockade. His scrawny arms were laden with purple and ivy green vestments. I stopped to watch.
He walked up to the towering iron fence that enclosed him within the stockade. A group from the crowd outside quickly stepped forward. There was no elbowing or shouting or impatience as hands extended through the bars to receive a chasuble or robe or scapular, and the myazedo fighters guarding the fence didn’t bark at anyone to move off. No. It was as civilized a distribution of plunder as I could imagine.
I turned back to Keau and the dragonmaster, the latter who hadn’t bothered watching and was muttering to him self and making vigorous gestures with his hands, as if argu ing a point.
“I saw an acolyte’s scapular in those clothes,” I mur mured as we followed Keau up a cool set of smooth stone stairs. “The acolytes weren’t supposed to be killed.”
“Maybe that one fought,” Keau said, and he stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at me with eyes that, for the first time, were weighted with the loss of life that had occurred during the night. “There was much noise, hey-o. Much shouting, much confusion. And we had to move fast, and some of us are not trained warriors and may have been afraid. We had to move so fast.”
I understood, then. Those shrugs of his were not of nonchalance: He didn’t want to talk about last night, was haunted by some of the things he’d seen and done.
I stepped away from a smear of dry, brown blood ground into the stone wall near my cheek and followed him to Tansan.
Their eyes were battle-bright as they engaged in curt dialogue about the distribution of goods, the creation of a people’s army, the necessity for djobawen—the patronage of the people—and who amongst them should fly an escoa and try to find Chinion, their absent leader, to apprise him of their liberation of Xxamer Zu.
I had something to say about that, but I bided my time, waiting for the right moment. Watching. Calculating. Perched on the edge of an exquisitely carved mahogany table, greedily eating a dusky plum plucked from the silver metalwork fruit basin that was beside me.
Tansan watched the discussions in silence from where she was sat—not reclining, but seated as if upon a throne—on one of the many low divans in the room. She, too, was bloody, and a wound on her arm was swathed in cloth. Like her fellow warriors, she was dressed in a waistshirt and breeches. It was powerfully alluring, see ing her clothed like a man, the swell of her bosom strain ing against her bloodied waistshirt.
The dragonmaster had not been admitted into the room. He was waiting outside the guarded doors. Frothing.
“This suwembai kam,” one of the seated rebels said, re ferring to the dragonmaster as a madman. He didn’t look up from the knife he was using to carve dirt and dried blood from under his fingernails. “He’s skilled with dragons. Do we trust him enough to take one to go look for Chinion?”
“No,” said a rebel with two heavy, matted braids hanging on either side of his face. “We use the drunken herald we hold hostage instead.”
“We need to send out more than one dragonflier. Chinion could be at any of our camps; we’ll waste days locating him.”
One of the pacing rebels made a chopping motion with a hand. His face was a tangle of black beard, and his hooked nose bore old acne scars. “Only one escoa should fly out. We don’t have enough skilled dragonfliers, and I don’t trust the suwembai kam.”
I cleared my throat. All eyes swung toward me, swift and sharp as swords.
“How many skilled dragonfliers do we have?” I held up a hand and ticked them off. “The man you call the suwem bai kam, who flew the escoas and Tansan’s girl-child to your camp in the jungle. The boy Ryn, who flew alongside him. And this hostage you speak of, this drunken herald. A man who goes by the name of Kaban, if I’m guessing correctly.”
By the carefully imperturbable expressions on the reb els’ faces, I knew I’d guessed correctly. A point for me. “Any other dragonfliers? No? The rest killed in our take over, hey? Fine. This is what I suggest, then. We use them all, send them all out.”
An explosive snort of derision from Acne-nose. “And if something goes wrong and none of them return? We’ll have no one amongst us who can fly a dragon.”
“Perhaps that should have been considered before the massacre last night.”
He spat and took a step toward me, eyes blazing. “Is there blood on your hands? Did you fight for your life and freedom last night? Who are you to sit there and criticize our success?”
“I’m a danku rishi via, born on Clutch Re.” I kept my voice low and even and my eyes riveted on his. “My father’s name was Darquel, my mother’s Kavarria. She was born here, on Xxamer Zu. She named me Zarq. Some call me Zarq-the-deviant. Others call me the dragonwhore of Re. You may have heard of me.”
A subtle stillness fell over the room, as if I’d reached out and lightly cupped, dagger in hand, the balls of every man present. Acne-nose looked as if he were fighting the urge to draw back a pace.
I felt some satisfaction in knowing that talk of the in famous dragonwhore of Re had reached a hidden camp of rebels isolated deep in the jungle. They’d heard of this woman Zarq who had dared defy Temple by joining a dragonmaster’s apprenticeship, a woman who may or may not be demon-possessed and commit bestiality with dragons.
I looked at Tansan. “I didn’t lie to you; I
am
Kazonvia, the second girl to leave my mother’s womb. But now you know me also as Zarq.”
“And why have you come to the myazedo,
Zarq
?” Acnenose asked, voice hostile.
“To hatch bull wings for the rishi,” I said.
Thunderous silence for half a heartbeat.
“You know how to do this?” asked the rebel who was stu diously carving blood from under his nails. If he’d looked once at me, I’d not caught him at it.
“I do. I can promise you bull dragons—not just one, not just two, but several clawfuls—in as little as eight weeks’ time, maybe sooner.”
“How?” asked the one with two braids.
I took a bite of the plum I’d been warming in one palm and chewed. Every rebel except the one carving his nails watched me.
“Hear me out first,” I said, and I wiped juice off my chin. “From what I understand, Chinion is your leader. He has several myazedo camps and he plans to use his troops of rebels, at some point in the undetermined future, to liber ate several Clutches that are small and geographically iso lated. This is good.”
I pinned Acne-nose with my eyes. “But not good enough. It’ll be only a matter of time before the liberated Clutches are once again under Temple rule. Temple stems from the Emperor, and the Emperor has legions of men. There are seven fully inhabited islands in the Archipelago, all of them under the Emperor’s rule. He will never run out of soldiers. We will.
“When we have bull dragons, we end the Emperor’s mo nopoly over dragon ownership, and instead of throwing the myazedo down the jaws of the Emperor, we’ll convince the Emperor that he can’t stay in Malacar, regardless of how many soldiers he has. We’ll make Malacar undesirable for him. We’ll drive him out. We’ll end the poverty and starva tion in every Clutch, all across the land.”
I finished my plum with three swift bites and wiped my hands on my stained and ripped bitoo.
“A grandiloquent speech,” the seated rebel with the knife murmured, without looking up.
“I’m not finished.” I waited several moments, letting the silence stretch long before I continued. Not a man among them was pacing now. “I have access to a network of men who have been planning just this sort of thing for some time. They can supply us with arms on a massive scale. They can arrange the sinking of the Emperor’s ships in the harbor of Lireh, and they can move us on dragonback to locations so that we can, in the course of a single night, steal the bull dragons and raid the daronpuis’ quarters of several targeted Clutches. These people can help us make all that happen before the end of the month, so that the Emperor’s army is drawn out across the nation and a united attack on this Clutch will not be deemed a priority by Temple. And mean while, if we use our own overseer to parley with Clutches Cuhan and Re—which, by the way, are now governed by our deposed overseer’s half brother—we can keep
them
at bay while we’re breeding bull dragons.”
I turned to the fruit basin beside me, selected a pome granate, and dug my fingernails into its thick, nubby skin. “That’s why I suggest that we send out three escoas. One to find your Chinion as swiftly as possible, one to my contact in Liru, and one as a parley between Clutch Re and Ghepp, our deposed overseer. And I suggest we do it soon, because unless we move fast, Kratt and Temple will sweep down and crush us before the next full moon.”
A moment of silence. Tansan leaned forward. “Who is your contact?”
“A merchant tycoon with a fleet of ships and several of his own escoas. He helped arrange my escape from Arena. He can be trusted.”
I hoped.
“What is this network of men we should blindly trust?” Acne-nose said, and there was something of a sneer in his voice. He didn’t like that beneath my bitoo was a woman who’d defied Temple in a far grander way than he had dur ing his years of training for rebellion in a hidden jungle camp.
“Not blindly,” I snapped. “Never blindly. I’ve fought in Arena and twice survived the attack of a bull dragon; I do
nothing
blindly.”
I looked away from him, let him know by my body lan guage that he wasn’t worth engaging in debate. I spoke to Tansan and the rebel who sat listening to every word I said as he carved at his nails with his knife, and to the other gaunt, savage rebels who were listening and watching me intently.
“This network I speak of is comprised of foreign émi grés and merchant tycoons,” I said. “Retired roshus. Paras who’ve defected from the Emperor’s army. I think it’d be wise for your Chinion to meet one or two of them. Here, on this Clutch, on his terms, as soon as possible. We need to move fast.”
“Let’s say Chinion can be located and returned to this Clutch,” Knife-carver said, still without looking up. “Let’s say you should bring a few select men here to speak with him.”
I hesitated, then took a bold guess, remembering rumors of an uprising of several Hamlets of Forsaken that had occurred when I’d been an apprentice in the dragonmas ter’s stables. “Chinion will be flying back here on his own dragon, yes? One of the dragons he stole from Clutch Maht last year.”
Knife-carver gave a ghastly smile that sent shivers up and down my spine. “We prefer the word
liberated
to
stole
.”
“How many of the Hamlets of Forsaken throughout Malacar are connected to Chinion?” I asked.
Knife-carver didn’t answer me. Tansan did.
“Most Hamlets are simple farming communities. A few once supplied Chinion’s camps with grain and food sta ples, but after Chinion’s attack on Clutch Maht, Temple razed several Hamlets to the ground. Everyone within was murdered. Even the elders were not spared. Women and children were raped first. Chinion asks nothing from the Hamlets now, and they offer nothing.”
“Separate entities,” I said.
“To protect the Forsaken.”
“The Forsaken should be alerted of what’s about to hap pen across Malacar. They’ll be Temple’s easiest targets of retribution, regardless if they’re uninvolved.”
“We need to harry Temple enough that the Hamlets are viewed as a low priority,” Two-braids said.
“The Hamlets should be forewarned nevertheless,” I said. “We’re creating a future for the children of this nation; we want to limit the bloodshed as much as we can.”
“You dislike our methods,” Knife-carver said.
I chose my words carefully. “Bayen children suffer night mares and grief as much as any rishi child does. I’m not cer tain that the massacre last night was necessary. But I don’t know that taking every lord hostage would have been fea sible, either. What’s done is done. If we can limit bloodshed in the future, we should do so.”
“Sinking ships and raiding Clutch stables are not blood less activities,” Two-braids said. “A revolution creates corpses as well as a new future.”
I grimaced. My hands were stained red by pomegranate juice. “I know.”
Sensing a moment of weakness on my part, Acne-nose pounced. “Will you deign to tell us bloodied ones how you propose to create bull dragons from air, hey-o? Or are we supposed to merely trust that you can do such a thing, like we must trust everything else that spills from your mouth?”
If I’d had a whip in my hand, I would have cracked it against his nose and slashed that pocked skin wide open.
“I’ll tell those who are worthy of telling,” I said acidly.
Tansan rose from her divan. “We have work to do. If any heralds or dragonfliers arrive from other Clutches or elsewhere, they’re to be brought here alive and unharmed. Zarq, you stay. We must talk further, you and I.”
Acne-nose glared at me as he departed.