Dargonesti

Chapter 13

By morning, Coryphene had convened a council of war. His warrior chiefs and the priests of the great temples gathered to listen as the Protector and Queen Uriona laid out their plans.

The warriors filled the plaza in the center of the palace level. Their faces were hard and grim. There were gaps in their ranks. The priests and priestesses, on the other hand, prayed where they stood, calling on divine aid to save them from the chilkit. This annoyed the soldiers. Honor the gods, said the warriors, but listen to Coryphene Wallbuilder, Protector of Urione.

A dais ringed by curtains was set up for Queen Uriona. Her handmaids entered the plaza and flanked the dais. In unison they bowed their heads. The elves in the plaza did likewise as Uriona entered the enclosure. Coryphene, clad in his finest armor, appeared next.

The warrior chiefs raised both hands in salute and roared, “Coryphene! Quoowahb kadai!” which meant “The Dargonesti are with you!”

“Let there be silence,” Coryphene intoned. “We are in the presence of our divine ruler, the goddess among us, Uriona Firstborn!”

A pall of silence fell instantly over the hundreds assembled in the plaza. Uriona’s voice reached out from the veiled dais. Her words carried perfectly to every ear.

“My people,” she proclaimed, “we stand on the threshold of our destiny. Today, the hated enemy will fall to us. I have asked the gods to bring us a weapon by which the foe can be destroyed. As always, my brother gods have seen fit to do as I asked.”

Coryphene tipped a pot of gnomefire into a basin of seawater set up on the floor before the dais. It sputtered and burst into hissing flame. The priests recoiled, and many of the soldiers shifted uneasily away from a sight sea creatures had never beheld-naked flames.

“With this weapon, we cannot be defeated,” Uriona went on. “I have seen our victory, and it will be glorious.”

“Uriona!” Coryphene shouted. “Quoowahb kadai!”

The crowd took up and echoed his call over and over, until Coryphene raised a hand, signaling for silence. “The army will assemble on the plain of the kelp gardens,” ordered the Protector. “All the firelances will be distributed to the left and right wings. When the battle commences, the wing commanders will attack, forcing the chilkit back. The wings will advance until the enemy breaks, then they will join to enclose the center. None shall escape us. None shall be spared!”

Once more Coryphene had to silence their cheers before he could speak. “Keep clear of the lance heads,” he told them. “The yellow mixture inside burns when touched by water. If a pot bursts prematurely, the only way to put out the fire is to smother it with sand. Is that understood?” A clatter of weapons against shields signified the warriors’ approval. Coryphene raised his voice, the words ringing through the square. “You know your places, soldiers! To victory! To victory!”

“To victory!” they shouted in return. “Coryphene! Quoowahb kadai! Uriona! Quoowahb kadai!”

The chiefs marched out to join their units. The priests and priestesses waited until the fighters were gone, then bowed and filed out silently. Uriona called to her warlord.

“Coryphene.”

He went swiftly to the curtained enclosure. She seldom spoke his name. Hearing it now, feeling himself poised on the brink of his greatest victory, an intoxicating thrill went through his body. He knelt just outside the thin curtain.

“Yes, Divine Majesty?”

“Guard yourself, Coryphene. You are my instrument of destiny. Be valiant, but be careful as well.”

“With Your Divinity to watch over me, nothing can touch me.”

“Victory is assured. I have foreseen it. But-” The soft silhouette of the queen shifted on her ornate chair. “But our individual lives cannot be vouchsafed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Divine Majesty, with all my heart.”

He rose. Before he could take his leave, Uriona spoke again. “After the battle, there is a task to do. Only you can be trusted to accomplish it, Coryphene.”

“You have only to name it, my queen.”

“The drylanders must die. All of them. If any survive, it will endanger our expedition to Silvanost.”

Coryphene, despite his absolute devotion to her, was shaken. “All of them? Even the princess of the Qualinesti?”

“Especially her. And the old colonel and the dwarf. They are a great danger to me, Coryphene. There is one other who must die. One of our own people.”

He had no trouble guessing. “Naxos,” he stated.

“Yes. He has already betrayed us to the drylanders. He plots with them to destroy us. To destroy me.”

“He will not survive the battle! I vow it, Majesty!”

“Be wary of him. My brother gods may try to protect him.”

“I fear no power but that of my divine queen,” Coryphene said fervently. To his amazement, Uriona extended her hand through the curtain and held it for him to kiss. He took the hand in his, gazing at it as though he would memorize every line. The skin was fine as musselbeard silk, the webbing between the long, elegant fingers a translucent turquoise. Slowly, with all possible deference, Coryphene touched his lips to the soft hand.

“I am Your Majesty’s slave,” he whispered.

The hand was withdrawn, and Uriona spoke no more. Coryphene rose and strode from the empty plaza. Purpose blazed in his heart. Today would be the day of reckoning. Today the Dargonesti would defeat their dread enemy.

Rank upon rank of Dargonesti soldiers marched through the market square on their way to battle. The common folk of Urione lined the way, waving and singing. Some tossed scented water on the passing troops, a sign of special favor. The warriors filed into the quays and marched into the pools.

Of all the dryland prisoners, only three were in the square watching the soldiers go to meet the chilkit invaders. Vixa, Armantaro, and Gundabyr stood together. The old colonel stood straight as a pikestaff while the Dargonesti marched by, as if he were reviewing the troops. Vixa leaned on one arm against a low wall and counted the ranks. In a quarter hour she noted five thousand Dargonesti warriors had passed her.

“And still they come,” she marveled. “Where does Coryphene get them?”

“Perhaps they’re marching out, reentering the city, and marching past again, in a loop,” Gundabyr wryly suggested. His bearded, craggy face was deeply shadowed from lack of sleep. “You know, to fool the hometown folks.”

“You’re wrong,” Armantaro said. “I’ve not seen a face repeat.” His martial stance and hawk-faced profile had attracted the attention of some of the Dargonesti soldiers. They’d begun to turn toward the Qualinesti colonel as they passed, giving a perfect “eyes left.”

“A lot of these lads are new to arms. Look at the fit of their equipment. They’re untried soldiers,” the colonel remarked.

Vixa looked more closely and had to agree with his assessment. The spears were not ported at a sharp angle, the way veterans would carry them. Helmets seemed either too big or too small. Some of the Dargonesti even had empty scabbards flapping at their sides, as there were not enough weapons to go around.

A contingent of firelancers marched by, the new weapons on their shoulders. These were the best of Coryphene’s troops, hand-picked for size and strength. Many had come from the ranks of the Protector’s own guard. Considering the ferocity and size of the enemy they were to meet, their numbers seemed terribly small.

The sight of the ill-prepared youngsters and the too-few veterans galvanized Vixa into action. “I’m going out, too,” she declared.

“What? Lady, you mustn’t!” Armantaro objected.

“Can I stand idly by while others fight for my life? No!”

“I can,” Gundabyr said calmly. “They took me prisoner, made me a slave, caused me to lose my brother. I made their damned gnomefire. Now it’s their fight, Highness. Let ’em fight it.”

“If you fight, then I shall be at your side,” said the colonel.

Vixa clasped his arms. “No, my friend. Even if you won’t admit it, I must-you’re ill. That cough of yours gets worse daily.”

Even as she said this, Armantaro’s body shook as he smothered a cough. “It’s nothing,” he insisted.

“Stay here, Colonel. They’d never give you an airshell anyway.”

“What about you?” asked Gundabyr. “What’ll you do for air?”

“I have my own resources.” Vixa moved to fall in with the passing ranks of soldiers. Armantaro would have followed, but she put a hand on his chest to stop him. “I order you to remain, Colonel,” she said firmly. “As your commander and your princess.”

“But, Your Highness-”

“No, Colonel. It is my official order-and my private wish-that you stay in the city. If anything should happen to me, tell my mother …” She frowned, her voice trailing off.

He saluted. “I’ll tell her you died bravely, in battle.”

“You’ll do no such thing. Tell my family to visit the seaside every year on Midsummer’s Day. Tell them-” She smiled and departed without finishing the thought, merging into the column of tall sea elves. Armantaro quickly lost sight of her.

“What did she mean-visit the seashore?” asked Gundabyr.

“A joke, my friend.” But the colonel looked anything but amused. Suddenly, an attack of coughing seized him. He turned his back on the ranks of marching elves, leaning on the wall for support. Gundabyr saw blood flecking his lips as he gasped for air.

At the quayside, a Dargonesti officer was directing lines of warriors into the water. Vixa remained hidden among the slow-moving ranks until she drew near the officer.

“You! Drylander! What are you doing here?”

“Going out,” Vixa replied tersely.

“Are you mad? There’s going to be a battle!”

“I know.”

The lines of soldiery were walking down the ramp into the water. The rest of the pool was empty. Vixa spun, leapt, and hit the water in an arcing dive.

“Stupid drylander!” the officer yelled. “Where do you think you can go? You there-soldiers! Get her!”

Vixa swam hard for the passage leading into open water. She kicked furiously toward the archway. However, she felt hands seize her ankles. Three sea elves had caught her. She had no hope of shaking them off. The princess emptied her mind of everything but the memory of her dolphin body. The sleek black-and-white form filled her thoughts.

Heat flooded her body. The chill of the water was replaced by an expanding warmth. Vixa wanted to kick at the Dargonesti hands that held her ankles, but her legs had grown rigid. Of their own volition, her arms drew in tight against her sides. She knew an instant’s panic as she felt herself being hauled back by the Dargonesti. The world tilted crazily.

Her Dargonesti captors suddenly cried out and fell back in shock. The leg they had been holding had become a muscular dolphin’s tail. Though they were accustomed to the shapeshifters among their own people, this sudden transformation of a drylander took them completely by surprise.

Vixa fanned the water with her tail and shot out through the yawning arch. She turned up, gaining height over the sea bottom. The voices of her sea brethren were all around her.

“Hurry, hurry!” cried a dolphin voice. “The battle is joined!”

Vixa swam hard toward the sound. She sped through the water like a bird on the wing, passing schools of small fish. More dolphins gathered in the gloomy water. She fell in with a charging school of Dargonesti shapeshifters.

The ocean was filled with the sounds of battle. From below, the Dargonesti were calling every dolphin to come to their aid. Glancing back, Vixa saw hundreds streaming toward the scene of the conflict.

The chilkit were formed into a huge crescent, the horns of which threatened to close around Urione. The sea elves had sortied at four points and formed troops. The two center divisions of Dargonesti were being forced back under heavy chilkit attack. So far no gnomefire could be seen. Vixa prayed the formula would work. Everything had been prepared in such haste.

A dolphin hailed the princess. She didn’t recognize him until he told her his name. He was Kios, the shapeshifter she’d met before. Following him, Vixa angled down with a hundred other dolphins to join the fight. A square of Dargonesti, bristling with spears, had been backed into the coral gardens on this side of the city. The chilkit, fighting in close ranks, sometimes almost standing on top of each other, advanced on them. Sand churned up around the feet of a thousand fighters. Blood drifted in the water like smoky clouds.

Kios let out a high-pitched cry and rammed into the back of a chilkit. A half-second later, Vixa hit the next creature in line. The shock went through her from nose to tail, but she felt the red shell crack under the blow. Flexing her flukes, Vixa climbed out of reach of the chilkit’s claws, circled, and dove again. Another shapeshifter streaked by her and hit the same target. The chilkit met him head-on. The monster’s claws caught him on both flanks. Blood obscured them both for a moment, then Vixa saw the lifeless body of the shapeshifter sinking to the sandy bottom.

Shocked by his death and her own narrow escape, Vixa pointed her snout toward the surface. She raced upward in blind panic until her black-and-white head broke into the air in a blast of spray. Her thoughts whirled. The sun dazzled her.

Vixa rotated her body, scanning the horizon for possible landmarks. There was nothing to be seen but endless rolling waves. No hint of land marred the perfect line between sea and sky.

She knew she was somewhere in the great southern ocean called Turbidus. If she swam directly north she would find land eventually. Her dolphin form could make the trip with ease, no matter how long it took. Should she go? Didn’t she have a duty to escape, to warn the nations of Ansalon about the threat of the Dargonesti and-most especially-about Queen Uriona’s mad plan to conquer the elven nations?

What about her friends? Coryphene had sworn to free them if the battle was won. That was her first duty. She couldn’t simply leave them to their fates. Vixa took in a great breath and dove once more for the depths.

Descending toward the city, the princess circled the battle site. The underwater cries of the Dargonesti added to the cacophony. From her position, Vixa saw that the chilkit had fought through the coral garden to the base of Urione itself. The Dargonesti wings had held, so now the chilkit formation resembled a giant red horseshoe. What was Coryphene waiting for? It was time to use the gnomefire!

Throwing caution to the wind, she dove hard at the center of the Dargonesti position. Coryphene was easy to spot, in the front ranks surrounded by the remainder of his guard. His tall, decorated helmet stood up above the rest. Hurtling over his head, she shouted his name. The Protector was too busy battling a chilkit to reply. Vixa doubled back and rammed the chilkit he fought.

“You there! Sea brother!”

She cruised by him, regarding him with one bright eye. “Thank you for your aid,” he called in the water-tongue. “Do I know you?”

“Why have you not used the firelances?” she demanded.

“By the Abyss! Who are you to give me counsel?” Beneath his heavy helm, Coryphene’s brow knitted. Suddenly, the frown lifted, to be replaced by a look of astonishment. “I do know you! Vixa Ambrodel! What-what are you doing in this guise?”

She ignored the question. “You’ll be backed into your own plaza soon! Why don’t you bring up the firelances?”

Coryphene was hailed by several other sea brothers. They’d brought the same question from his flank commanders.

“You have so little faith in our queen’s genius,” he told them all darkly. “Very well,” the Protector said at last. “Bring forth the firelances! To the fore, all firelances!”

Vixa sped off to the left flank. She shouted Coryphene’s order in her dolphin voice. Her words carried far. By the time she reached the left flank, the long lances tipped with the pottery cylinders were hoisted and ready. The chilkit were obviously not impressed by the unusual weapons. They closed ranks and came on.

“Now!”

The first line of firelancers dashed their weapons into the foe. Seawater mixed with the paste as the pots shattered, and a hundred chilkit were immediately engulfed in flames. The front lines of both armies pulled back, leaving the burning creatures in a zone of fire.

Underwater, gnomefire burned fiercely, but there was no smoke. Instead, huge bubbles of combustive gases boiled out of the flaming paste. The bubbles hit like forge hammers, hot and hard, as the chilkit and dolphins found out. One struck Vixa a glancing blow in her belly, driving the wind from her body. She raced for the city shell and surfaced in one of the lower-level quays. After a moment to catch her breath, she returned once more to the fray.

On both flanks the chilkit line gave way. The firelancers pressed forward, backed by armed Dargonesti.

In the center, Coryphene called for his reserve corps. A thousand fresh sea elves sprang up from hollows in the sandy bottom. The chilkit line fragmented. Individual chilkit were easily mown down by the more numerous, faster-moving Dargonesti spear fighters. Wherever the chilkit managed to re-form to stand off the Dargonesti, firelancers were brought up. Hundreds of chilkit were consumed by fresh infernos.

Vixa swooped in and out of the fight, hammering chilkit, saving Dargonesti who were menaced or who had fallen to the enemy. Over the din of battle, she heard her name being called. She stiffened to alertness.

“Sea brothers, to me!” cried the voice. Vixa found herself turning to obey.

A larger dolphin blocked her path. “Kios?” A raucous dolphin chuckle told her she was wrong. “Naxos!” she exclaimed.

The chief of the shapeshifters bobbed his head in the affirmative. “How do you like battle, little dryfoot? Isn’t this better than sucking air from an old whelk shell?”

“Naxos-don’t you hear the call?”

“It’s only Coryphene. Ignore him.”

“I can’t,” she complained. “I am compelled!” It was true. The call acted like a powerful magnet drawing her toward its source.

Naxos circled her slowly. “It’s a sorcery he uses on the weak-minded. Resist it! You are freeborn.”

“Sea brothers! To me! I command you!” The pressure became stronger, pulling her away from Naxos.

“I must go!” she cried. Resistance seemed impossible. He followed, keeping pace with her.

A thick cloud of dolphins had formed over the center of the battlefield. Amid columns of coiling, bubbling water, Vixa maneuvered to reach Coryphene. The Protector and his personal guard were mounting the dolphins as though they were horses. Coryphene climbed onto a sea brother that Vixa recognized as Kios.

“They have broken!” Coryphene exulted in the water-tongue. “Now is the time to drive the chilkit back into the dark depths forever!”

The triumph in his voice and the victorious cries of the other Dargonesti-dolphin and elven alike-filled Vixa’s brain and set her blood tingling. She joined some of the riderless dolphins who were swooping and swirling around their Protector.

“I am with you!” Vixa chirped.

Coryphene threw down his shield. A warrior handed him three spears. Coryphene raised them in a bundle over his head. “Death to the enemies of Urione! No quarter! No quarter!” he roared.

Less than a thousand Dargonesti, mounted on dolphins, rose up from the battlefield and swept down on the retreating chilkit. Vixa and the other riderless dolphins surged ahead, harrying the fragmented enemy. The chilkit armor was thinner on top and vulnerable to spear thrusts. Coryphene killed six chilkit with his first spear before it broke. He grabbed a second weapon.

“Go on! Go on!” he commanded. “Let none survive!”

Vixa ploughed onward, turning this way and that, helping the sea brothers chase down any chilkit they saw moving. The ocean became so thick with chilkit blood, she no longer tasted the sea’s salt, only a sickening sweetness.

The broken wall at the mouth of the Mortas Trench appeared. Vixa rose and shot through the gap. Below, red-shelled creatures were pouring back down the dark slope, seeking escape from the vengeful sea elves.

Coryphene had no intention of letting them go. He rallied his scattered dolphin riders and ordered the last battalion of firelancers to follow them. Tired but exuberant Dargonesti cheered him and followed in his wake.

Vixa swam mechanically now. Exhaustion was sapping her will. The dolphins, with and without riders, sped deeper and deeper into the black water. A running fight ensued as individual chilkit turned to make their stand in the murky shadows. Their bravery surprised Vixa, who had grown used to thinking of them as cruel and mindless monsters. They were not. They helped their own wounded comrades, defending them from fresh attacks. But they were too scattered to offer an effective defense. Whenever four or five chilkit banded together, firelancers were called to put them to the torch. Soon the trench floor was lit by a dozen burning gnomefires.

Vixa left only once, taking in fresh air. Angling back down to the seafloor, she rounded a bend in the trench and saw a red glow that wasn’t gnomefire. Ripples of unpleasantly hot water washed by her. The floor of the trench had split open, and lava was oozing out of the seabed. The red snake of molten rock filled the rift for miles.

Suddenly, Naxos appeared at her side. “Coryphene means to slaughter them all!” he exclaimed.

“Why? The battle is won.”

“He is drunk with destruction. The chilkit are completely broken, yet still he wages war. Sea brothers are put in danger for no reason!”

“I’ll talk to him,” she said as she shot away from Naxos. She had no idea what she might say, but she had to try.

In the hot, weird waters of the trench, Vixa swam slowly along a line of Dargonesti foot soldiers. At their head she found the dolphin riders, led by Coryphene.

“The day is ours, Princess!” he exulted.

“You have defeated them utterly, Excellence. The battle is over.”

He shook his head. “None must survive. They will only threaten our children someday.”

“Talk to them then. Make peace with them. There’s no need for more Dargonesti lives to be lost.”

“Talk to monsters? You’ve seen them in battle-do they know anything of mercy?” She had no answer.

Vixa swam away. The last chilkit had their backs to the lava flow. Faced with gnomefire on the one hand and lava on the other, they charged the Dargonesti. Many sea elves died in that last charge, perishing in a battle they’d already won. Coryphene pressed the enemy with firelances. The remaining chilkit withdrew to a low mound. Lava flowed around the base and climbed its sides. Coryphene called his warriors back at last.

The chilkit stood fast, holding steady in the midst of the lava stream. Gradually, the lava reached them, and covered them. When the last chilkit was engulfed, Coryphene ordered a quick retreat, for the ocean was near to boiling.

The plain between the Mortas Trench and Urione presented a grisly scene. Thousands of Dargonesti were pouring out of the city now that the chilkit were defeated. They covered the plain, dispatching wounded chilkit with clubs, gaffs, even rocks. Chilkit claws were hacked off as edible trophies, and the bodies thrown on the still-burning gnomefires. Patrolling dolphins kept the sharks at bay while the carnage went on.

Coryphene was spotted as he returned from the trench. Ten thousand arms raised in salute. Ten thousand Dargonesti voices keened in triumph. The Protector accepted the adulation with a wave of his last spear.

The moment of victory was spoiled, however, as a single dolphin hurtled into view. Naxos brushed Coryphene with his powerful flukes, knocking the Protector from Kios’s back.

“Traitor!” Coryphene hissed. “Blasphemer!”

“Whom have I betrayed? You?”

“You have betrayed your lawful sovereign by consorting with the drylanders. You have blasphemed our divine queen, and shared our sacred mysteries with a land-dweller. There she is!”

He pointed to Vixa with his spear. Frightened and embarrassed, she glared at them both.

Coryphene’s loyal troops drew close around him. Naxos taunted, “Leave your guards, Excellence. Face the sea brothers on your own!”

Hundreds of Dargonesti warriors shouted insults and threats at the lone shapeshifter. To her consternation, Vixa realized that none of the sea brothers were coming to their chief’s defense. Not even Kios, his second-in-command, had a word to say for Naxos.

“Face the sea brothers, you say?” Coryphene jeered. “I see only a single traitor who has no brothers.”

Naxos had been swimming with studied nonchalance several fathoms above Coryphene. In a flash of gray, he dove at the Protector. Coryphene stood ready, spear lying in the crook of his right arm. A dolphin Naxos’s size could shatter the armor of a chilkit. If he rammed Coryphene, there was no way the Protector could survive.

Vixa had been so riveted by this interplay, she’d sacrificed vigilance. Several warriors seized her. She struggled, but was too exhausted and too outnumbered to escape.

Coryphene dropped his spear butt to the top of his right foot and, with one powerful kick, launched the weapon at Naxos. The shapeshifter twisted to avoid the flashing spear, but it caught him on the back, just behind his dorsal fin. Coryphene looked on impassively as Naxos thrashed and rolled, trying to dislodge the spear. Vixa heard the shaft snap. The head remained embedded. In a welter of sand and blood, Naxos sped away, inches off the ocean floor.

“Let him go,” Coryphene told his guard. “The sharks shall be his healers.”

The Protector glanced around. Kios and the other sea brothers had scattered. They were gone in the blink of an eye, their chance to support their chief likewise vanished. Coryphene Wallbuilder stood amid the scene of his greatest victory, uncontested master of Urione.