Though they had been headed towards the towers for some time, it took the sound of steel on steel to get them running. The spools rapidly diminished as they laid them out, but they never let them completely run out, stopping only to tie the end of one spool to the beginning of another, and then only for a few seconds.
Chamag led them, his axe held tightly in his hands as they finally, far too many minutes after they had first heard the noise of battle, reached the towers themselves. And from the look of things, they had arrived too late to participate. Scattered through the esplanade were chunks of black bone, as well as a few piles of white ash, and several pieces of highly decorated armour. Two of the foreign knights were cautiously approaching from the other side. When they saw Chamag and the other Magyars come rushing into the esplanade, they both looked at each other once and then turned and bolted.
In the centre of the towers though they found both Nemgas and Pelurji. Nemgas was dressed mostly in another set of the fine armour, unconscious. Wrapped in his arms was the boy, bleeding from his chest, also unconscious. His head lay against Nemgas’s own. The body of another Driheli knight lay nearby, though this one was clearly dead, his body white from the loss of blood. “Quick! Mend their wounds! Hurry ‘fore they shouldst perish!”
In the serene glow of the silver light, they all did so, their faces nervous. Yet the spirits of Hanlo o Bavol-engro were silent.
Sir Ignacz considered it a miracle that he and Sir Tadeusz had managed to escape the grip of fog upon that ancient and cursed city. The second miracle was in finding the rest of the squires near the southern entrance into that ravine. All he needed was one more miracle and he could become Saint Ignacz, the first Driheli to be so named. Perhaps merely getting out of the mountains alive would do for that, he thought ruefully.
The horses had been calmed, but not so the people. Two of the riders were in catatonic states, and Father Athfisk was only dimly aware of what was going on around him. It fell to Skowicz, Sir Poznan’s squire, to greet them when they finally came stumbling from the fog and once more into a world that seemed semi-recognizable. The massive pillars that heralded the Southern entrance to the city were still towering above, crystal globes blaring a brilliant silver around, casting the mountains in a pale illumination.
“What happened?” Skowicz asked, still atop his horse. He had not even taken the time to put his bow away. “Where are the others? Where is Sir Poznan?”
Sir Ignacz offered te young squire a sad glance. “The rest are dead. Even Sir Poznan. He was skewered from behind. I will tell you more as we move.”
Skowicz’s face, shaken already by the rising of the black bone dragon, was shaken once again. His eyes fell downwards, and he breathed a long heavy sigh.
“I do not know if Kashin is still alive or not,” Sir Ignacz added, glancing once to the only other knight of their company to still draw breath. Sir Tadeusz nodded glumly at that. “A large force of Magyars arrived after the dragon was destroyed. We had no choice but to flee. And we must continue. We’ve lost too many and need to find the Knight Templar Sir Czestadt.”
“We will have revenge for Sir Poznan,” Skowicz said then, looking back up. There was fire in his voice, more fire than Sir Ignacz could ever recall hearing.
“Yes,” Sir Ignacz replied, no doubt at all in his voice. “But not tonight. We must withdraw. Let us continue on down the mountain pass for a few hours. We shall stop and rest when we can no longer see any hint of this city.”
Slowly, they all agreed to the plan and began making their way down that long road, hearts singed with defeat.
It was three days later before Nemgas finally awoke. Three full days dreaming of dragons and ancient warriors, a boy who lifted high a great sword, and a man towering above him laughing as that sword sprouted from every part of him like a tree sprouting leaves. The dragons thoughts had been his own, its malicious need to destroy filled him, and he smashed at those images in his mind repeatedly, but they continued to come back. The detonation of the dragon itself replayed, and he felt int hat moment the singular experience of having every part of his body split asunder.
But then, after three days, he awoke to discover that he was laying upon his pallet in his own wagon. The air about him was quiet, though in the distance he could hear the sound of softly spoken voices. A faint rushing of water was also there, as well as the crackling of fires. The wagon itself was stationary. There was light in the wagon though, so he knew it was daytime.
His muscles and joints were stiff, but not so much that he couldn’t crawl out of his bunk. Gamran was sitting in his own bunk, and smiled as he turned and looked down at his friend. “Good morning, Nemgas! Thou hast worried us by sleeping so long! There hath been days when I wished I couldst hath slept as long as thee, but ‘twas not to be. How dost thou feel?”
Nemgas slipped out, dressed only in his linens. “Stiff.” He spied his jerkin and breeches upon the shelf. He grabbed them and began slipping them on. “How long hath I slept?”
“Three days,” Gamran said. “Three days since we didst find thee and Pelurji near that dead knight.”
“Pelurji?” He remembered seeing the boy with blood stained tunic. “Hast he survived?”
Much to his dismay, Gamran’s smile vanished. “I wishest that I couldst tell thee it wast so, but he still sleeps. We hath waited three days to hear the tale of what thee saw there. The others wilt be overjoyed to hear of thy waking!” Gamran hopped down from his bunk, the smile once more returned to his face. He put a hand under Nemgas’s shoulder. “Come, let us greet the rest!”
Nemgas shrugged him off morosely and sighed. “I wish to see Pelurji first.”
Gamran’s face fell once more, the little thief appearing resigned. “Dazheen hath forbade any to see him but her and Bryone.”
“Then I wilt go see Dazheen,” Nemgas said through clenched teeth. “Pelurji is my boy, not hers.”
“Truly?” Gamran asked, though there was little humour in his voice. “Thou shalt be in luck, for Hanaman hath brought Dazheen outside to the fires that she might watch the city.”
“The city? Hanlo o Bavol-engro?”
“The same. We hath not left yet.”
Nemgas nodded, his ire abated. He followed the little thief from the wagon and into the circle with the cookfires. The wagons had moved, but not much. They had set their backs against the northern valley wall, but still near enough to the lake and the grasses at the escarpment’s edge that they could tend the Assingh. The valley wall simply gave them a better defensive position in case the knights of Driheli should return.
Even thinking about the knights brought back the image of Sir Poznan towering above him, lips curled back in a smile. And that smile had faded when they sword had emerged from his gullet. So the Knight Commander of Bydbrüszin was dead, that was something at least. There were still others to contend with, but they could wait. First he must know what had happened to Pelurji.
True to his word, Gamran led Nemgas to where Dazheen the seer sat with a fire at her back. A small wooden table had been brought out for her, as well as a cushion to sit upon. Her cards were arrayed before her, and Bryone stood nearby to catch any should the winds pick them up instead. Hanaman was pacing back and forth nearby, as were several other friends.
“Nemgas!” Pelgan called, the first to see him emerge. The young man stood up, and gripped him warmly about the middle. “‘Tis good to see thee awake.”
“‘Tis good to be seen,” Nemgas said. “I must speak with Dazheen,” he added, even as Chamag and others began to offer him their greetings as well.
The old seer smiled at the edge of her lips, but it was not a happy smile. “If thou wishest to speak with me, come hither,” Dazheen called out, her voice as thin and stretched as linen.
Nemgas approached, his friends clearing a path for him that he might sit before the seer. He crossed his legs, head still able to clear the table. It was not a large one, and Dazheen merely sat upon a cushion herself. Of the four cards before her on the table, none of them were face up.
“Thou wishest to see the boy,” Dazheen said slowly. Nemgas could feel the eyes of his fellow Magyars upon him, but none more than Hanaman’s. The elder Magyar watched him keenly, studying him for hints of injury, any sign of weakness or change that may have come over him since his ordeal in the heart of Carethedor.
“Aye,” Nemgas said, though he knew she had seen it already. “He didst save my life.”
“He hast done more than that,” Dazheen added after a moment, running one gnarled finger across the surface of a card. She did not however turn it over. Nemgas glanced beyond her to the faltering form of Bryone. Beyond her caught a glimpse of dark hair. There was another watching him, one that he had not expected. But he couldn’t see who it was yet.
Nemgas drew his eyes back to the old seer. “What hath Pelurji done?”
Dazheen smiled and reached out one hand, resting it gently upon Nemgas’s own. “He hast won thy pride - won it until the stars shouldst wink out.”
“Aye,” Nemgas said, a smile crossing his lips, thinking of all that the child had done. Pelain had faced that ancient dragon in his old age. Pelurji had defeated it when but a child. And Pelurji hadn’t gone to Cenziga either.
“And now he hast been injured unto the point of death,” Dazheen added, regret filling her words.
Nemgas twitched visibly. “Nay. ‘Tis not to death that he hast been injured?”
Dazheen’s face was full of sorrow, her old eyes chilling him to the bone. “His wound shalt kill him unless it canst be healed. ‘Tis a wound deeper than our arts canst mend, Nemgas of the Magyars. The boy Pelurji wilt die. He may yet wake and speak to thee, e’en rise from bed, but he still shalt die.”
“Nay!” Nemgas shouted, jumping up from where he sat. “There hast to be a way to heal him. There hast to!” He balled his hands into fists. Somebody stepped forward to offer a comforting hand, but he shook them off. He did not dare look into the crowd. He would see regretful faces, but ones resigned to what the seer had said. They would all counsel that he let the boy go, he knew it.
Dazheen studied him for a moment. And then, a curled nail slipped beneath one card, and she turned it over. Nemgas took a deep breath and looked at the image therein, but it made little sense to him. It was one of the coins, and it showed a merchant selling his wares. Chickens by the look of it.
“Thou hast one way to heal this wound,” Dazheen said after several moments careful study of the card. Bryone rested one hand on her shoulder, watching to see what her mentor did. For a moment those two stood still, as if captured into that moment, unable to leave it.
Nemgas clenched and unclenched his fist. “Well? What dost thee see?”
Dazheen placed her hand over the card. “To save the boy’s life, thou wilt lose thy own.”
There was an audible gasp. Hanaman’s moue became grimmer, eyes trailing up to Nemgas once more. But the Magyar paid them little mind. He had faced certain death before.
No, he told himself, that had been Kashin, and he was indeed dead.
“Dost thee see any way in which both Pelurji and I shalt live?” Nemgas finally asked.
The seer turned over the next of the four cards and peered over it. Her fingers traced along the picture of two men and a woman. Nemgas could not quite see what they were doing, but one man faced the woman, while the other was turned away. “Thou canst only survive if one already gone dost will it.”
Nemgas nodded slowly, lips set in a grim line. He was not quite sure what Dazheen had said, but it did not sound optimistic. “What must I do?”
Dazheen did not turn a card over this time, but lifted her eyes to his. “The wound to the boy, what caused it?”
“The dragon,” Nemgas said after a moment.
“Dragon?” Chamag blurted. “We saw no dragon.”
“‘Twas the remains of the dragon that Pelain didst kill hundreds of years ago. Pelurji slew the dragon with Pelain’s sword. The bones shattered and one struck him in the chest,” Nemgas said, keeping his focus on Dazheen. Her grey eyes were pools of murk and shadow that he felt lost within. Yet there was some subtle light that danced within too, something that he needed to find.
For several moments Dazheen sat in silence, regarding the two cards upon the table that she had turned over. There were still two left that she had not consulted. Was she deciding which one to choose, Nemgas wondered. But her gnarled hands never reached for either, but remained resting upon the two already face up. Finger nails long curved traced nimbly along the lines of faces etched into the cards, as if feeling textures that could not be seen.
“The dragon wast tainted,” Dazheen said at last, her eyes severe. “There wast a great evil about him. ‘Tis very old. Older than I canst see. The taint must be lifted for Pelurji to survive.”
“What taint?” Nemgas asked, nails digging into his palms.
This time Dazheen did reach for a card. She selected the one nearest to Nemgas and flipped it over. It was the Ace of Swords, featuring a single golden sword in the middle, no other decoration adorning the card. Nemgas stared at it for several seconds, feeling the weight of the faces of his fellow Magyars, and the very towers of the city beyond pressing against him. A golden sword. The seer gazed at that card, waiting for meaning to become clear to her. Her lips turned downwards, and she looked up to him. “Thou dost know what this means. No other canst say it for thee, Nemgas.”
“But I doth not...” he began to say, but his voice caught in his throat, no more words came. His eyes were held by that golden blade. Strangely, the card itself, and the table it sat upon began to fall away, leaving that bright blade before him. It seemed to turn and shift slightly, as if the image before him were but a poor imitation. The blade was long and broad, pulsing with a queer power. The hilt was heavily wrought, bearing nine sides. A blade like no other, forged in a manner unknown to the world. And one he’d never actually seen.
But he remembered hearing of it. Or more accurately, Kashin had heard tell of it, in that lofty tower of the ancient Åelf Qan-af-årael. The words, so many of them spoken that night, flooded once more through his mind. The sad, sad tale of Jagoduun, the nine, and of Yajakali the Åelf prince who’d forged the blade along with two other artifacts of immense power. They had all been corrupted by the Underworld itself.
“Nay,” Nemgas said, his voice descending upon the camp as if uttered thousands of miles away. “‘Tis the blade of Yajakali.” A sudden gust of wind caught the cards up from the table and scattered them about. Bryone jumped after them, as did several other men, and after a moment, they’d managed to grab them all and return them to the seer. Yet Dazheen recoiled from them as if they were a snake set to strike.
“Put them away,” Dazheen said, looking to her apprentice Bryone. “Another hast seen this too.”
Nemgas blinked then, brought back from his own revelation. “Another?”
“An enemy hast seen,” Dazheen repeated. “I shouldst not touch the cards for now. But thou dost know what taint hath claimed Pelurji.” It was not a question.
“Aye,” Nemgas said, nodding first to her and then to Hanaman whose grim face had become a study in morbidity. He also remembered what Qan-af-årael had told Kashin he must do to end the threat that had claimed the life of Patriarch Akabaieth. That same threat now sought to claim Pelurji’s life. Nemgas swore to himself he would not fail where Kashin had. “‘Tis an ancient taint as thee hast said. And the source of this taint resides in Yesulam.”
Hanaman blinked then, his expression genuinely surprised. “Yesulam? Dost thee still wish to go there?” Beyond him, the fog that had covered the city had begun to lift.
Nemgas laughed bitterly. “Nay, I hath no wish to go there. ‘Tis the city that springs forth the hatred for Magyars, these knights doth come at the orders of one in Yesulam. Now the taint that wilt fell my Pelurji resides in Yesulam. I hath no choice but to go to Yesulam. I hath been compelled, Hanaman. ‘Tis not my choice.”
The leader of the Magyars did not appear to like this one bit, but he did not object. “If we art to defeat these knights and see to it that no more shouldst come for us, we must stop this evil at its source. If ‘tis in Yesulam, then to Yesulam we must go. But we canst go there as we art. We wouldst not be welcome in that city.”
“Thou speakest truly,” Nemgas said with a grim nod. “But I know that city well. I canst lead us within to do what must be done. ‘Tis a long journey, and we must still get past the rest of the knights. We must plan ere we begin.”
“Aye,” Hanaman said with a heavy nod. “All of us must plan. We shalt speak this very afternoon and through the night if we must. Let us begin.”
Nemgas shook his head. “Not until I hath seen my boy.”
“Thy boy?” Hanaman asked, a curious tone entering his voice.
“Pelurji. I wilt see him ere we begin.”
Hanaman glanced to Dazheen. The old woman smiled, once again the resignation in that smile made Nemgas’s heart ache. But she nodded and told him that Pelurji was in her own wagon and that Bryone would show him to the boy. The young girl was still holding the cards in her hands nervously, keeping them as far from her as she could. At the mention of her name, she looked quite nervous, eyes settling uneasily upon Nemgas. He was easily a head and a half taller than her, and with her trembling gait, it only made him seem more massive.
Nevertheless, she led him back towards the seer’s wagon. Nemgas let his eyes stray across the rest of the Amgyars who had assembled to hear what Dazheen had to say. It was very rare for her to do any readings where any but the petitioner could hear. But there was only one face that caught his eye even fora moment. Her dark hair swirled quickly out of view, but he knew it had been her - Kisaiya.
Nemgas felt a brief flash of a smile cross his face, but it quickly disappeared as he stepped up into the wagon. He had been in Dazheen’s wagon before, though not often. Beyond the first curtain lay the table at which she normally did her readings, as well as several candles that burned constantly. Behind the second curtain though was the beds in which she slept. A third had been set out, this one a bit smaller than the other two. In it lay Pelurji. His face was white and his chest was bandaged, but otherwise, there was no outwards sign of injury.
Bryone stayed back, taking only a moment to put the cards away before leaving him alone with the boy. Nemgas waited until she left before reaching out to touch the child. He skin was still warm, though not as warm as he would like. For several moments he simply held one of Pelurji’s hands in his own, staring down, watching the boy’s chest rise and fall like the crashing of waves upon shore. They came, some not as quickly as others, but they still came.
Slowly, Nemgas leaned over and placed a kiss upon the boy’s forehead. “Thou wilt be free, my son,” Nemgas said, reaching up with his other hand to brush a bit of hair from the boy’s face. “Thou shalt run, juggle, tumble, steal, and all else that a Magyar ought! Thou hast already earned thy place amongst the legends, Pelurji. Thou hast much still to do, my son. Much.” He kissed the boy again, and then stood up, feeling a tear brimming upon his eye.
He quickly brushed it away, and took a deep breath. He had to be a man for Pelurji after all. With but one more look at the sleeping boy, he turned and let the heavy curtain fall back in its place.