‘He speaks the truth,’ said Blackthorne. ‘And you know me as a man of honour. I would not lie to you.’
‘What I know is that desperate men will set aside their principles when death is the reward for keeping them,’ said Tessaya smoothly. ‘And I will tell you what is the truth. Indeed dragons will come here, completing a prophecy of our ancients unless I can stop them. And stop them, I will. There is no threat from the mark in the sky. My messengers tell me it is merely the fire mark of Parve, destroyed by your hands. I will not listen to you while your allies seek the only power that can halt the Wesmen march to Korina.
‘And yet I will show you more respect than you show me. If you want to stop the Wesmen and you refuse honourable surrender, it will have to be on the battlefield. So go and prepare for the fight, if you have the stomach for it. Under the terms of parley, you have three hundred counts to leave my camp. That count has started.’ He turned his attention to the food remaining on his plate.
Behind Darrick, the tent flap was pulled aside but he ignored it, striding forwards to bang his hands on the table, shaking the plate and upsetting the goblet which pirouetted over, spilling its liquid on the grass.
‘And what if I do tell the truth and your men stop The Raven from closing the hole? It will be too late to ask for forgiveness when dragons are laying waste to Balaia, and they will fly over Wesmen lands first.’ Darrick felt his anger burning. He heard a weapon drawn but ignored it. ‘What will you do?’
Tessaya met his stare, waving a hand to keep his guards back. He smiled. ‘If that is what you believe then you had better hope The Raven can outwit my northern army. The count continues.’
Blackthorne and Gresse came to Darrick’s shoulders and gently drew him back.
‘I understand your scepticism,’ said Blackthorne. ‘Yet it doesn’t change the reality. As a gesture of good faith, Gresse and I will remain here as your prisoners. Should what we say turn out to be untrue, we will be at your mercy.’
Tessaya pushed a spoonful of meat into his mouth and chewed, talking around the food and pointing the spoon at Blackthorne.
‘You are a brave man, Baron, and I have nothing but admiration for your defeat of my southern army. I almost lament the destruction of your town but such are the necessities of war. You make a generous offer but what hollow victory will it be, placing your two noble heads on spikes while my people are killed by your dragon allies?
‘Do you not understand? I am soon to march to victory in Korina once I have defeated you here. I will rule Balaia. So you see, you are already at my mercy.’ He turned to his Shaman who nodded and moved quickly to the tent door.
‘Arnoan will escort you to the borders of the camp. I will see you in battle.’
The three senior Balaians looked at each other. Darrick felt a sense of desperation sweep over him and, for a moment, considered breaking the parley to kill Tessaya. But he could not and he knew Blackthorne and Gresse would move to stop him. Tessaya’s point-blank refusal to believe him was quite predictable but it left The Raven helpless should Senedai defeat the Protectors.
Stalking from the audience, he found himself praying that Xetesk’s abominations would live up to their reputation.
Sha-Kaan flew from Wingspread with the orb beginning its fall from the sky. The Great Kaan, tired from his exertions in battle and without a melde-corridor now Hirad Coldheart was in his domain, stretched aching wings to catch the winds in the heights, heading again for the Shedara Ocean to find Tanis-Veret, if his altemelde was still alive.
The cold air brought a clarity of thought to the Great Kaan, his speed driving ice into his lungs when he opened his mouth to breathe, serving also to quell his anger at Hirad Coldheart’s words. He found he could see through the haze of his own mind at what his Dragonene’s words actually meant.
And that hatched unusual feelings. Sha-Kaan was used to having his orders fulfilled without question or error. Yet The Raven had told him there was no certainty of success in their mission and Hirad had introduced him to a Balaian concept quite alien to him - that the best a man could possibly do had to be considered enough, even if it meant ultimate failure or even death. Sha-Kaan had let his contempt show. He should have killed the puny human then and there but once again Hirad had managed to stay him with irrefutable logic.
‘Kill me and you’ll never know if we would have succeeded and you will die. If we do fail, we’ll all die in the attempt anyway and you will have your wish.’ Spoken calmly. Sha-Kaan had laughed but it hadn’t dampened his anger. Not then.
Now, flying to a meeting that had to bear fruit, he could understand the effort The Raven had made. He could feel their desire for success and he knew they were aware of the consequences of failure for themselves, for Balaia and for the Kaan. But knowing isn’t the same as doing.
Another new emotion flashed through his body. Deep fear. He had been scared before; of injury, of facing the anger of his kin, and of his spawn dying before reaching maturity. But this was different. The fear marked the possibility that the entire Brood Kaan might become extinct and more, that they no longer wielded the weapons that could change that possibility. The Raven did.
They had to be protected at all costs which meant peeling defence from the gateway. He had too few healthy dragons. Elu-Kaan shimmered on the borders of death without his Dragonene to help him, reliant on the ministrations of the Vestare; and every melde-corridor was in use. The Kaan needed help and there was only one Brood that might turn. The tragedy was that it had been the Veret they had targeted in the last battle, knowing that to drive them off would break the Naik stranglehold. It had worked, but if the Veret refused him now, the death and maiming would have been for nothing.
Stooping from the heights with night full in the Shedaran sky, he feared the Kaan had done too thorough a job. No guard flew to meet him, no Veret sought revenge. None patrolled their air borders and the water below was still.
He landed on the meeting rock, pushed his head beneath the surface of the ocean and roared into its impenetrable depths. With his mind, he sought Tanis-Veret, pulsing his sorrow and his desperation at what had occurred in the skies over Teras. He pulsed his need and roared his urgency. He could only pray to the Skies that his altemelde heard him.
Sha-Kaan withdrew his head and lay flat across the rock, neck stretched in front of him. It was to keep his muscles extended and to appear in an attitude of deference from above but more it allowed his body sensors to cover the sea-drenched dark island, searching for vibrations from the water around him.
He waited for what felt an eternity in another’s Brood space, exposed and vulnerable should attack come. Ultimately, though, he was rewarded. A thrumming through the rock told of the approach of a large dragon, powering up from the depths. Sha-Kaan sat up, neck to the formal ‘s’ to greet Tanis-Veret as he exploded into the sky, water flying in all directions, waves rippling away from his exit point.
Water cascaded from his black-smeared body as he rose into the sky, trim wings angled for lift and tattered on the trailing edge. He bellowed his displeasure and fired a long breath into the air during a slow circle of the rock before landing heavily, tail sweeping water over his scarred lower back. His neck reared up, his eyes skewering Sha-Kaan with a malevolent stare.
‘Here to preside over the final destruction of the Veret, Sha-Kaan?’ He took in the sky as if expecting it to fill with enemy dragons.
‘No, Tanis-Veret, I am here to offer your Brood a chance of salvation, ’ said Sha-Kaan, allowing his head to bow slightly in a fractional expression of humility.
‘Hollow words,’ spat the old Veret. ‘Your eyes have not seen what you have wrought.’
‘And now we—’
‘Beneath our feet, the remnants of my Brood cling to the faint hope the Naik will honour their promise and leave us in peace when the Kaan are destroyed. Fewer than seventy of us remain, many near death in our melde-corridors. Of those that can still fly, I am the least wounded and the scales of my back will never knit, such was the ferocity of Kaan fire, claw and fang.’ Tanis-Veret met Sha-Kaan’s gaze again and his voice became an echo of itself, broken and exhausted. ‘I cannot even spare the kin to defend my borders. Leave us, Sha-Kaan; you have done enough.’