Whether or not the Shen excelled at math, they could grasp the severity of the statement. Most of them, anyway.
“The longfaces have attacked before,” Shalake snarled. “We have killed them before. Stalk them, hunt them, and then,” he hefted his club, patted it into his palm, “shenko-sa.”
“Are you willfully stupid or does it just come easily to you?” Lenk snapped. “Do you not grasp the numbers here? Ten boatloads. Thirty-three each. There are. . how many of you?”
“Not that many,” Jenaji muttered.
“We strike swiftly, from the forests,” Shalake replied. “Hunt them like animals, as we have done before. We cut them down and feed them to the sharks.”
“They’ll burn the forests down,” Dreadaeleon said. “They have the power, the fire. Their magic is infinite.”
“So you say,” Shalake said, suspicious. “But this is much to ask us to accept from people we would have killed a moment ago, had maka-wa not vouched for you.” He glanced over them, sought a stooped, green figure amongst the masses. “Hongwe, did you see this?”
The Gonwa lifted his head reluctantly, said nothing. His eyes seemed heavy enough to roll out of his head, his frown deep enough to slide off and follow. He had worn the expression ever since the fate of his kinsmen had been revealed to him. He had said not a word since. Whatever bonds still linked the Gonwa and the Shen, they were enough to keep Shalake’s voice stilled.
“And they come for the tome,” Mahalar muttered.
“The tome is inconsequential,” Dreadaeleon said. “They come for fuel. Whatever it is they’re coming through, it can’t be powered by the Gonwa. They succumb too easily. A demon, however. .”
Mahalar loosed a low groan. “They fight one another, and whoever wins. .” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “We stand and fight, against that many, against that much metal and fire, and. .”
He didn’t need to finish that one.
“Not that it’s entirely unexpected that I suggest this,” Denaos began softly, “but has anyone considered running?”
“The Shen don’t run,” Gariath growled. “Neither do I.”
“Well, good, no one invited you, anyway. The rest of us can just hop in Lenk’s boat and-”
“Ours got destroyed,” Lenk interrupted. “What happened to yours?”
“These damn lizards sank it before we could get close enough to tell them not to,” Denaos said, rubbing his eyes. “So, did you commit any crimes against nature before I got here? Some horrid blasphemy to make the Gods hate us as much as they do?”
Lenk exchanged a quick glance with Kataria. “Define ‘crime.’”
“It does not matter,” Mahalar said wearily. “The longfaces have found their way through the reef before. They can do so again. The way out would put you in their path. They come. And they come with many.”
In the deathly silence that followed, in the bow of heads and the swallowing of doubts, the sound of grains of sand shifting atop one another could be heard as clear as a bell.
Asper’s voice could be heard only if one strained.
“There is a way,” she whispered.
The eyes that turned upon her were so intent it seemed as though they might pierce her flesh. But she did not flinch or shy away, even if she did not look up to meet them.
“They don’t act on their own. They follow one man.”
“Sheraptus,” Dreadaeleon muttered the name like a riddle.
“He controls them, the females. They obey him totally.” She cleared her throat, swallowed something back. “If you can kill him, their numbers won’t mean anything.”
“If.” Dreadaeleon spared a black laugh. “If you can kill someone with an entire furnace of blood and flesh feeding him fire and frost and lightning and whatever else the hell he feels like throwing at us.”
“She’s right, though. I’ve seen it,” Kataria said. “They bark like dogs at his command.”
“It’s worth a try,” Denaos said hesitantly, as though he himself hadn’t expected to say it.
“No, trying to jump over a wall to get into a farm is worth a try, you bark-necked dimwit,” Dreadaeleon said snidely. “What you are proposing is the equivalent of trying to beat down the wall with a twig and the wall is sixty feet high, made of metal and when you hit it, it electrocutes your genitals and makes your head explode.” He took a breath, then snorted. “It is impossible, in other words.”
“I’ve killed plenty of longfaces,” Gariath grunted.
“And yet, none of us have even been able to scratch this one. Even Bralston couldn’t hurt him,” Dreadaeleon said. “I’d say it could be done, but I also said that magic had limits and he went and disproved me there. We don’t even know if he can be hurt, much less-”
“He can.”
Asper only barely whispered, but she commanded their attention nonetheless.
“I hurt him.”
“How?” Lenk asked.
“He came to me and he did. .” She swallowed a breath. “And I hurt him.”
“If anyone was to kill him, it would be me,” Gariath grunted. “You expect me to believe that you could do anything to him?”
“Take a step back, reptile,” Denaos said, stepping protectively in front of her. “And then continue going that way until you fall off a cliff. If she says she hurt him-”
“Humans lie. Humans are weak. Humans are stupid.” Shalake stepped beside Gariath, hefting his club. “Which is why they threaten a Rhega in front of the Shen.”
“And everyone fears the Shen.” Kataria stepped in front of Denaos. “My arrows feared them, too. Must be why they tried to hide. . in Shen gullets.”
“Look around you, pink thing,” Yaike growled, narrowing his good eye on her. “Look what surrounds you.”
“Yeah? Why? Is it harder for you to see with only one eye?” She clacked her teeth after together.
“ENOUGH.”
Mahalar’s voice was a hungry thing, eating all other voices, all other sounds, even its own echo. Muscles relaxed, weapons were lowered. He turned his stare to Asper.
“What did you do?”
She looked at him intently. She spoke resolutely.
“I hurt him.”
Mahalar was silent.
Without looking up, he raised two fingers and waved them at Shalake. The immense lizardman grunted, reached to his hip and pulled free an immense warhorn. He trudged heavily up the stone stairs. Then raised the horn to his lips and blew.
The noise was no shrill, shrieking warcry. It was something deep, heavy and inevitable. It blew across the island, through the forests, through the coral, scattering fish and sending eels slithering back into their holes. It ate the sound, as the clouds overhead ate the light. And all was silent.
For a moment.
Then, the other horns came. One, two, three, blowing from the forest and shores and walls in response.
Shalake came back down, belting the horn at his hip. He nodded at Mahalar, who merely grunted back. Lenk blinked, glancing to the ancient lizardman.
“What?” he asked. “What just happened?”
“The watchers are summoned. They will come. We will fight. We will bleed.”
“That’s it?”
“That is not enough?”
“I mean, just like that? One horn and that’s that? Everyone comes to fight?”
“We took the oaths, human,” Mahalar said. “Every Shen is born dead, knowing that they walk with hell under them and that they will kill. . and die to do so.”
His sigh was older than even he was. No dust came from his mouth. The light behind his dull ambers dimmed and he closed his eyes with such heaviness that he didn’t seem to see much point in opening them again. He said softly, he said sadly.
“That is duty.”
TWENTY-SIX
The last footfall came heavily, crunching upon the sand as Gariath reached the other end of the ring. He stared at his feet, sunk slightly into the moist earth, before looking back over his shoulder.