So warm, here. So warm.
It made his aching flesh prickle.
“This is his place.” At the crest of the hummock, Hunric had stacked branches into a neat structure and knelt reverently over them. “His place!” he repeated fervently, striking a spark and blowing. An ember kindled, tiny flames flickering.
“His place,” Turin echoed dully. In the dark swamp beyond, an ember of yellow-green kindled. “And tomorrow, we head straight for Pelmar, yes?”
“Pelmar.” Hunric, kneeling, grinned at him. “Oh, yes.”
Something in the air throbbed, echoing the throbbing in his loins. He thought again of the white limbs of the Lady of the Ellylon, gritted his teeth and thrust the thought from his mind. In the air? No. It was the very rock beneath him that throbbed, slow and steady, warm as a pulsing heart.
An ember of yellow-green, lifting.
“Hunric.” His voice was frozen in his throat. “Hunric!” A shape, moving, impossibly large. Roots ripped, dripping, from the swamp itself. Slow, so slow! An ember of yellow-green. A lidded eye, a dripping chin. “Hunric …” he whispered.
“What?” The tracker sounded almost friendly as he gauged the coals, skewering the slow-lizard and thrusting it into the flames. “Pelmar, yes. I remember. We’ll leave on the morrow. Is that what troubles you?”
Unable to speak, Turin pointed.
“What?” The tracker squinted into the swamp.
When it struck, it moved fast. A wedge of darkness blotting out the emerging stars, swinging on a sinuous neck. Its hinged jaws opened wide, rows of teeth glistening like ivory daggers. The ground beneath Turin lurched, surging with the motion of the strike as, somewhere in the swamp, anchored talons gripped and heaved. He saw the lidded eye as it swung past him, the open maw snapping.
A strangled sound cut short, and the embers of the campfire scattered.
Hunric.
Turin gibbered with fear, scuttling backward crab-wise. Plates of shale beneath his hands and feet, the edges cutting his flesh. Not shale, no; scales, ancient and encrusted, dark as iron. Before him, the long neck stretched high, lifting the massive head to the top of the palodus tree while the throat worked in gulps.
It didn’t take long. Not long enough.
“Please,” Turin whispered as the terrible head swung back his way, arching over its own back, bearded and dripping with moss. “Oh, please!”
A nictitating lid blinked over the yellow-green eye. “Who assssksss?”
“Turin of Staccia.” His voice emerged in a squeak. “I am here in the service of Lord Satoris.”
“Sssatorisss …”
“Third-Born among Shapers.” Summoning a reserve of courage he hadn’t known he possessed, Turin found his feet, confronting the hovering head, fighting his chattering teeth. “This is his place, Lord Dragon, and he sent me here!”
“Yessss.” The yellow-green eye blinked. “Your companion was … tasssssty.”
“Lord Dragon!” Terror threatened to loosen his bowels. “My Lord was a friend to your kind!”
“A friend,” the dragon mused. “Yesss, onssse.”
“Once, and always.” Breathing hard, Turin wrestled his sword free of his pack and held it aloft. Its steel length glinted greenish in the light of the dragon’s eye. “I carry a message for the Sorceress of the East and the Dragon of Beshtanag. Will you not let me pass?”
“I grieve for my brother.” There was something resembling sorrow in the dragon’s fearful mien. “He has chosen his path. There is power in thissss plassse, Sson of Man. It might even have healed Sssatoriss the Ssssower, onssse, but Haomane’s Wrath ssscorched his thoughtss to madnesss, and he fled north to the cooling sssnows. It is too late for the Sssower. Now this is my plassse, and I mussst abide.”
“Who are you?” Turin whispered.
“Calanthrag,” the answer was hissed. “The Eldessst.”
Swift came the attack, the massive head darting. Turin dodged once, striking with his sword, aiming for the glinting eye. He missed, his blade clattering against impervious scales. This, he thought in an ecstasy of terror, is the end. The dragon’s head reared back and swayed atop its sinuous neck, blocking out the sky. Turin’s hand loosened on his sword-hilt. He stood on a dragon back, feeling the warmth under his bare, lacerated soles, and thought of the vows he had taken, the women he had known. A smell of rot hung in the air. The dragon’s eye roiled, yellow-green. Old, so old!
Older than the Delta.
There were things he knew before the end, Turin of Staccia, things he read in the dragon’s roiling eye. Of a knowledge older than Time itself, older than the Chain of Being. Of the birth of dragons, born of the bones of Uru-Alat; first-born, Eldest. Of warring Shapers, and how they had Sundered the earth. Of their Children and their wars, their endless hierarchies and vengeances. Of Lord Satoris, who spoke to dragons; of dragons, who aided him. Of dragons dying by steel borne by Haomane’s Children, by Arahila’s. Of Calanthrag the Eldest, hidden in the Delta.
All these things, and the whole more than the sum of its parts. This was the knowledge vouchsafed to Turin of Staccia, whose yellow hair was caked with mud, who stood barefooted on a dragon’s back, with a useless sword in his limp hand, bannock-crumbs and gold coins at the bottom of his pack.
He was a long way from home.
Oh mother! he thought at the last.
It was fast, the dragon’s head striking like a snake, low and sure and swift. Massive jaws stretched wide, breathing sulfur fumes. A snap! A gulp and a swallow, the impossibly long gullet working, neck stretched skyward. In the swamp of the Delta, the tall palodus tree stood unmoving, while small creatures keened in distress.
Inch by inch, Calanthrag the Eldest settled.
An insect chirruped.
Stillness settled over the Delta, ordinary stillness. Lizards crept, and snakes stirred their coils. Gnats whined, protesting the fall of darkness. A dragon’s talons relaxed their purchase in the mire. Straining wings eased their vanes. A long neck settled, chin sinking into muck. Membranes closed over glowing eyes to the lullaby of the Delta. In the moonlight, a hummock, black as slate, encrusted with moss, loomed above the swamp.
Calanthrag the Eldest slept.
Green. green and green and green.
It whirled in the Ravensmirror, reflected in the sheen of glimmering feathers. Green leaves, palodus and mangrove, a dense canopy. Dark green, pine green, the forests of Pelmar. Softer green, new vines and cedars, wings veering in fear from Vedasia, where death lurked, arrow-tipped.
“ENOUGH!”
Ushahin Dreamspinner pressed his fingertips to his crooked temples, his head aching at Lord Satoris’ roar.
The Ravensmirror shattered, bursting into feathered bits, heads tucked under wings in fearful disarray.
Back and forth he stormed, red eyes glowing like coals. The tower trembled beneath his tread. A smell in the air like blood, only sweeter. “What,” Lord Satoris asked with deceptive gentleness, “is Malthus doing?”
“I don’t know, my Lord,” Ushahin whispered.
“My Lord.” Tanaros executed a crisp bow. “Whatever the Counselor attempts, it matters naught. Our plans proceed apace, and your army stands in readiness. Our course through the Marasoumië is plotted, and Lord Vorax has seen to our lines of supply. Haomane’s Allies walk into a trap unwitting. We are prepared.”
The glowing red gaze slewed his way. “I mislike it.”