Elu-Kaan’s eyes flickered open as he felt Sha-Kaan’s breath on his face. A dark discharge ran from his nose but this was so far ignored by the Vestare who concentrated on his wing and the scales and skin that covered his chest cavity.
‘I am sorry, Sha-Kaan, I have failed you,’ he said, voice rasping and wheezing.
‘Speak with your mind, Elu, I am open to you. Rest your throat and your lungs.’
‘Thank you,’ said Elu-Kaan, a pulse of gratitude for the honour of mind speaking with the Great Kaan accompanying his words.
‘Soon you will be able to do so as of right,’ said Sha-Kaan. ‘Now, tell me of your journey and your encounter with the Arakhe. And I will hear no talk of failure. Yours was a mission of risk and that you survived at all is testament to your ability and strength. If you should tire, tell me and we will talk at a later time.’
‘You are hurt, Sha-Kaan.’
‘Look to your own injuries, Elu. I need to take your information to my Dragonene. Speak while you are able.’
Elu-Kaan took as deep a breath as was possible for him. His body shuddered with the effort and the pain. Sha-Kaan again wondered what the damage could be but thought to ask a Vestare later.
‘It is hard to follow the corridor without a Dragonene as beacon but I could follow the streams and markers I knew, and the signature of Balaia is strong.’ Elu-Kaan’s eyes were closed once more and Sha could allow the frown of worry to spread across his features. Another breath, shorter this time, heaved across Elu’s body. His voice faded for a moment and then recovered. ‘I could feel the presence you call the Shroud as I approached Julatsa and the location of my Dragonene but behind it was silence like the void we felt when the Balaians cast their spell that tore our gateway.’
‘Calm yourself, Elu,’ said Sha-Kaan as he felt the increase in the younger dragon’s heart rate. He glanced across at the Vestare who worked feverishly on his chest with heated mud balms and scented steams. They would take some time to filter through the skin. One of the Vestare moved between the two dragon’s heads and rested a steaming pot beneath Elu-Kaan’s mouth and nostrils. His surprise at the new scent was followed swiftly by a relaxation of the muscles in his neck as the gentle fragrance of mist and leaf carried its healing properties to his lungs.
‘The Vestares’ skill is a blessing,’ said Sha-Kaan, nodding to the servants of the Kaan, who bowed in response to his notice though they could not hear the exchange between him and Elu. ‘Now, how did the Arakhe get close to you?’
‘I felt I could move through the Shroud but as I touched its presence, I could feel the magic was strong and a link between the Balaian and the Arakhe dimension, not of the Arakhe alone.
‘And it was full of Arakhe and they flooded my corridor, repulsing my fire and attacking me with their feet, their hands and their teeth. Those that bit inside my mouth hurt me. It was like ice and it quelled my fire and now it burns in my neck and deep within me . . .’ He trailed off again as a cough racked his body, causing his tail to reflex and slap the ground behind him and the Vestare near him to jump away sharply. New discharge shot from his nostrils and bowled over the pot whose contents drained into the hot moist earth of the Melde Hall. It was immediately replaced by another.
‘Enough, Elu-Kaan, you must rest.’
‘No, Great Kaan, there is one more thing,’ Elu’s mind voice was fading and Sha-Kaan guessed the balms and scents were designed to force sleep upon the wounded dragon. ‘The Shroud is full of Arakhe and they are baying for the souls of the Balaians. They think they have been given a way to breach the Balaian dimension that the Balaians cannot close. We must pray to the Skies that they are wrong because there is no way we can help them, the power is too great and we are too stretched.’
‘But what might it mean?’ asked Sha-Kaan, trying to close on the ramifications of the new threat. Elu-Kaan had the answer.
‘If they can beat the mages with whom they made the Shroud, they can expand its compass at will. It is another gateway, Great Kaan, and without Balaians to control it, could swallow our melde-dimension as easily as the gateway over Teras.’ Elu-Kaan’s mind contact slipped away and, for a moment, Sha-Kaan thought he had died. But a glance at the Vestare and their calm ministrations told him that Elu-Kaan was merely at healing rest.
He pulled his neck away from the ground and stood. There was no time to be lost and there was no time to rest and heal his own wounds. He had been right. Again, Balaians, trying to protect themselves, had set in train an event over which they no longer had any proper control. This time he could not talk just to Hirad Coldheart. This time, the entirety of The Raven had to hear him. Without another backward glance, he walked to his corridor and sought to travel interdimensional space, Hirad Coldheart’s signature as his guiding beacon.
Chapter 20
Barras knocked quietly, hoping to find the General asleep but the order to come in was rasped out immediately. The old elf negotiator entered Kard’s rooms in the base of the Tower, to find the General sitting by a small fire, his chair pulled over to an open window. A steaming mug rested on the sill and Julatsa’s senior soldier was gazing out at the star-lit sky. Night was a release, if only because the Shroud was all but invisible in the dark and somehow less menacing, though its aura sent shudders down the spines of any within its influence. By the master sand-timers, it was about two hours before dawn.
There was nothing more any of them could do but wait until the first order came through and then the day would bring what it would bring. Throughout the College, an uneasy quiet held sway. There was not a man, woman or child that did not know their role. In dozens of meetings, all of which took place beyond the gaze of the guards in the Wesmen’s tower, Kard and his lieutenants had outlined their plans in great detail.
In addition to the fighting groups and mage defence and offence, Kard had organised every member of the civilian population into a group to tackle a specific task. From provisioning soldiers on the walls with everything from arrows to bread, through carpentry and stonemasonry teams to plug and strengthen defences, to medical, stretcher, and fire teams, everyone was assigned the task most suited to their abilities.
In separate meetings, Kerela had briefed all her mages to obey Kard until the battle was either won or lost. In that latter event, all knew what would happen and those who could not directly help in burying the Heart were expected to die defending those who could. And finally, with the College sleeping its last before battle was joined, Endorr and Seldane had, at Barras’ behest, moved hundreds of the College’s most critical texts into or just outside of the Heart. Now, when the Shroud was dispersed, the Heart would look more akin to a storeroom than the very centre of Julatsan magic.
Barras glanced around Kard’s sparse accommodation. A single bunk lay unused against the right-hand wall. Charts, parchments and quills littered a desk beneath the other, still closed, window and the desk chair was heaped with books and diaries. These, Kard moved when he saw it was his old friend that had entered.
‘Sit down, Barras, you need your rest,’ he said, a half smile playing over his cracked lips; his chin, newly shaved, glistening with the sweat of the fire in the warmth of the room. He removed a pot from a hook just inside the grate and filled a mug for Barras, which the elf took in both hands, nodding his thanks.
‘Are you sure this is right?’ asked Kard, pointing his chin in the direction of the Shroud. ‘Going back to battle, I mean.’
‘What other way is there?’
‘Well, we could restrain the people and exist within these walls for . . .’ He paused and dragged a sheet of paper from the desk, shaking off those that sat atop it. A couple fluttered to the floor where he left them. ‘. . . one hundred and seventeen days. If we ration hard and deal with our cess sensibly.’