Shadows of Moth (10 page)

Neekeya bared her teeth, ready
to fight. Even Tam now drew his sword and stepped forward, face red.
Kee'an had to slam his fists upon the table, rattling the plates, to
restore calm.

"Hear me!" said the
Lord of Eetek. Suddenly he no longer seemed a weary old man. His old
pride returned to him, and he stood tall, shoulders wide, back
straight. "Hear me, Prince Felsar. You are young; you barely
remember the last war. But I am old. Twenty years ago, I joined
another so-called Lord of Light. I joined Ferius, ruler of the
Sailith faith. I sailed with him into darkness with many ships. I
fought the Elorians under the stars." His voice shook. "I
fought that war hoping to forge an alliance with the rest of
sunlight, to prove our worth to our fellow Timandrians. I killed
Elorians for them. I spilled the blood of innocents, and their blood
still stains my hand. And still the other children of sunlight mock
our ways, see us as weak, as benighted, as uncivilized. Only a
generation has passed, and already they ask us to spill Elorian blood
again." Kee'an raised his chin and drew his sword, a mighty
blade, five feet long and bright in the sun. "Never more will we
join the forces of evil. We bowed before Ferius, killed for him,
shattered our soul for him. Now we will stand against this new
tyrant. Now we will redeem our honor. Leave this place, Prince
Felsar! Return north and tell your father that we in the marshlands
will not bend the knee."

The prince stepped closer to the
old lord. Rage twisted his face. "You speak treason! You owe
allegiance to my father, your king. The swamp is not its own kingdom,
free to choose its wars."

"I am a free man,"
Kee'an replied simply. "And I choose the path of justice, not of
service to evil."

"Treason!" The prince
drew his sword, leaped forward, and swung the blade. Kee'an parried,
and the two swords locked. The prince screamed, spraying spittle. "We
will have your head for this!"

Neekeya and Tam snarled and
stepped forth, blades drawn. The prince spun from side to side,
glaring at each in turn.

"We do not bow before our
enemies," Neekeya said. "We slay them. And you've made
yourself our enemy."

The prince spat at her. "You
cannot defeat Emperor Serin, fool. Thousands of Magerians muster to
your east beyond the mountains. How can you hope to stop this swarm?
Thousands of troops serve my own father; they marshal to your north,
and when they hear of your treachery, they will crush you. In the
south, the desert warriors of Eseer already raised the Radian
banners; they too will march upon you. You are nothing but rebels to
your own crown, and the noose tightens around you. The swamps will
fall, and Daenor will serve the Radian Order, and—"

Kee'an swung his sword. The iron
crossguard slammed into the prince's head, knocking him to the
ground. The prince lay limp, moaning, blood trickling down his
forehead.

The Lord of Eetek looked at
Neekeya and Tam. His eyes were hard, his voice stern. "For
twenty years, I have sought peace, yet now war is upon us again—not
only with the enemy beyond our mountains, but with our own kin to our
north. Felsar will remain with us in chains. And the marshlands will
fight!"

Neekeya had spent the journey
here praying to raise arms, to fight her enemies. Yet not like this.
Not her father alone, a rebel to their own crown. A tremble seized
her knees.

She looked at Tam and saw the
same fear in him, but she saw strength too. He stared back at her,
his sword drawn.

"We defeated Serin in
battle before," Tam said softly. "We will defeat him
again."

She nodded but little hope
filled her. When they had faced Serin on the road outside of Teel,
only ten troops had protected the emperor. Now myriads prepared to
invade. Neekeya's breath shook in her chest, and her sword swayed in
her grip. The trees rustled and the birds sang on, unaware that they
soon might burn.

 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN:
LOST SON

Jitomi
stood at the prow of the
Do
Tahan
—the
Salt
Spirit—
staring
across the dark sea toward the coast of his homeland.

"The Isle of Steel and
Salt." His voice was so soft the wind nearly drowned it. "Land
of the Eternal Flame. Blade of the Night. Ilar."

Ilar—the great island-empire in
the night. Ilar—a land of warriors, fortresses, and flame.
Ilar—perhaps the greatest military power in the world. Jitomi had
not seen his home in over a year, and he dreaded his return.

Rain
fell and wind shrieked. The sea was rough and the
Do
Tahan
,
a
geobukseon
ship,
rose and dipped and swayed. Many rowers oared to the beat of a drum,
their faces wet with rain and sweat, and their long white hair
fluttered like banners. Two battened sails, their silk painted with
Red Flame sigils, aided the rowers' efforts, pushing the ship toward
the island. Ahead of Jitomi loomed the figurehead, an iron dragon
that doubled as a cannon. It was shaped as Tianlong, the last dragon
of the night and a symbol of Ilar.

Across the miles of
black, salty waters stretched Yakana Peninsula, a tongue of black
rock reaching into the sea. Clouds hid the moon, but many lanterns
rose along the peninsula, their lights orange and red. Jitomi could
make out the walls that lined the landscape, topped with parapets and
turrets and banners. Beyond these battlements rose narrow houses,
minarets housing archers, and pagodas with several tiers of red
roofs. At the seaside edge of the peninsula, rising high above both
the town behind and the water ahead, rose the ancestral home of his
family: Hashido Castle. Seeing the black, jagged fortress perched
like a demon above the water, Jitomi shuddered and swallowed down a
lump. It was home, but it was also a place of dark memories.

"Good to be
home, son?" said Captain Sho Hotan, an old man with a long white
mustache, tufted eyebrows, and wise blue eyes. He came to stand
beside Jitomi, the wind whipping his silken blue robes, and gazed
toward the shore.

Jitomi sighed. "No.
My father never wanted me to leave, to study magic. He called it the
trade of an old, superstitious woman. After fathering several
daughters, he hoped his only son would become a great warrior, a heir
to his power. I thought to become a powerful mage—to prove to him
that mages could be powerful—and yet now I return after only a year,
a failure, a—"

He bit down on his
words. Why was he telling all this to Sho Hotan, a man he barely
knew? He felt like a fool, spilling his secrets to a stranger.
Perhaps fear of seeing his father again made him foolish.

The wind whipped
him, thick with rainwater and saltwater, and Jitomi tightened his
black cloak around him. He missed his friends. He missed them so much
his belly twisted and his chest ached. If Tam and Neekeya were here,
he would feel braver. And if Madori were here . . .

His heart gave
another twinge. He thought of the last time he had seen Madori, how
she had scolded him, fled him into the darkness, shattered his soul
with her talk of separate paths . . . but not without also kissing
him. Not without giving him that memory of her warmth, the love and
light he had still seen in her eyes.

If
she came home with me, a half-Timandrian, I don't think my father
would even scowl.
His
heart would crack and he'd fall down dead. And perhaps that would
only make things easier.

He sighed. With the
Radians mustering for war, he needed his father's help. The old lord
held sway in Ilar's imperial court. He commanded many troops, and
Empress Hikari heeded his counsel. Jitomi would need to convince the
man that Magerians prepared to invade, that Ilar had to send troops
into Qaelin to stop the attack. If Jitomi failed, the night would
burn. Yet how could Jitomi speak sense to a man who loathed him, who
thought him lower than the old women who washed his clothes?

As they navigated
closer to the shore, Jitomi wanted to ask the captain to turn back.
He wanted to dive into the water and swim away. He wanted to be
anywhere but here, returning to this empire he had fled. He could try
to find Madori, to walk whatever path she took, or he could even
travel to find Tam and Neekeya, or perhaps he could still find his
sister Nitomi in the wasteland of Arden, the last place he had heard
from her.

No.

He forced himself
to take deep breaths.

If
I cannot enlist Ilar to fight this war, Madori will die in the Radian
flames. Tam, Neekeya, my sister—all will perish in the inferno of
war. I must do this. I need my father's help.

The
Do
Tahan
navigated into the port, entering a calm harbor between two
breakwaters. Many other military ships floated around them:
triple-tiered
panokseons
with
a deck for rowers, a deck for cannons, and a deck for soldiers;
lumbering
geobukseons,
vessels
similar to the
Do
Tahan
,
turtle ships with many oars and dragon figureheads that belched out
smoke; towering
atakebunes,
floating
fortresses covered in iron plates, pagodas upon their decks, their
panther figureheads made for ramming into enemy ships. Civilian
vessels navigated these waters too: the junk ships of Qaelish
merchants, the small rowboats of fishermen, and cogs shipping
everything from iron ore to silk. Their lanterns shone all around,
and their sailors stared—eyes almost as large and bright—as the
Do
Tahan
headed toward the pier.

Jitomi had been
only a babe when the Timandrians, led by the monk Ferius, had
attacked this empire, slaying many. Most of the enemies had attacked
Asharo, the great capital city, which lay northeast from here, but
some had landed upon Yakana Peninsula, and the wreckage of their
ships still lay upon the rocks. If Serin attacked, igniting a second
war between day and night, he wouldn't be a simple monk leading a
rabble. Serin would be the greatest general in Timandra leading a
trained army of killers. Would even these military ships, and the
tall walls that rose ahead, be able to stop his light?

They docked at a
pier. Jitomi walked along the plank and, for the first time in over a
year, stepped onto the shore of his homeland.

Ilar.
Land of my fathers. Land of—

He felt queasy. His
legs swayed. He leaned over the pier and lost his lunch into the
water.

He
wiped his lips and sighed.
The
proud warrior returns.

Fishermen
in silk robes moved about the boardwalk, pulling in nets of glowing
lanternfish, angler fish that sprouted dangling bulbs of light, and
octopi with glowing tentacles. Soldiers stood here too, beefy men in
black and red armor. Their helmets were shaped as snarling faces
complete with bristly fur mustaches, and many tassels hung from their
breastplates. Katanas hung at their sides, and through holes in their
visors, their blue and violet eyes stared at Jitomi. If they
recognized him, the son of their lord, they gave no note of it.

Now
I am a disgraced son,
Jitomi thought with a sigh. Even the fishermen's children, scrawny
little things who wore rags, had more honor here now.

A
mountain rose beyond the boardwalk, its slopes jagged with boulders
the size of horses. A
narrow stone staircase stretched up between the boulders, the steps
carved into the living rock. Two palisades of lanterns framed the
stairway, their iron carved into the shape of demonic faces, red fire
burning within their eyes and mouths. The passageway stretched
upward, hundreds of steps long, leading toward the castle. Jitomi
craned back his neck and stared at his old home.

"Hashido Castle," he
said, the wind whipping his words away.

The pagoda loomed, five tiers
tall. Its roofs were tiled crimson, their edges curling up like wet
parchment. Upon the black walls, arrow slits revealed red fire that
blazed within; the slits reminded Jitomi of blazing panther eyes.
Upon the uppermost roof perched a dragon statue, life-sized and
carved of iron, its jaws raised to the sky. From within those metal
jaws rose a fountain of fire, shrieking and crackling, a living
representation of the empire's Red Flame sigil. Hundreds of soldiers
served in this fortress. A dozen warships patrolled its waters.
Thirty thousand souls lived upon the peninsula it defended. In all of
Ilar, perhaps only the Imperial Palace in Asharo was mightier. Here
was the Blade of the Sea, the stronghold of the Hashido noble family,
a family that had produced many warriors, dojai assassins, captains
of warships, and . . .

"And me," Jitomi said.
"A skinny failed wizard."

He raised his chin. He squared
his shoulders. Perhaps he would seem weak here, but now he had a
task, and he would complete it. He began to climb.

The stairs curved madly, tall
and narrow, threatening to send the weak and infirm crashing down to
the boulders below. Any invaders who attacked would have to climb
these stairs in single file, heavy in their armor. When Jitomi
glanced to his sides, he saw hidden pillboxes carved into the
boulders. Soldiers lurked within, holding bows and arrows, ready to
fire. Jitomi nodded at the arrowslits in the boulders, hoping the
hidden men within recognized him as a son of this fortress. No words
came in reply, but no arrows either. He kept climbing.

Not only living soldiers lined
the mountainside. Skeletons lay between the boulders, still wearing
rusted armor. The eye sockets were small, only half the normal
size—Timandrian skulls. Here were the remains of the sunlit demons
who had attacked Ilar years ago, who had fallen attempting to capture
this fort. Jitomi's father had left the bones here, a warning to
future invaders.

Some
of these skeletons were mages trained at Teel University,
Jitomi thought and winced. Every time his father climbed these
stairs, he would think of Jitomi studying at Teel, and his rage would
grow.