Oathkeeper Read online

  “Not as risky as you think it is.” Rivvek heard footsteps outside his tent flap. Two steps took him close enough to throw them open. He smiled when doing so revealed Brigadier Bhaeshal, his personal Aeromancer.

  “Just happened to be in the area, Bash?” Rivvek teased.

  “Finally used to your new schedule.” She smiled. Dressed as Rivvek was in a traveling tunic, trousers, and boots, Bhaeshal would have made Hasimak’s nose wrinkle in dismay at her lack of formal robes, but they weren’t really all that sensible for long flights. “Lord Artificer.” She nodded to Sargus, the light from the candle reflected in the masklike band of steel that was her elemental foci. She looked back at him with those pale white crystalline eyes, and he returned her gaze warmly.

  “Lady Aeromancer,” Sargus nodded back.

  “Will you both be coming?”

  “Perhaps I ought to stay and . . .” Sargus trailed off.

  “Look after my father?” Rivvek smiled. “I wish there were something you could do to change his fate, but there isn’t. I need you with me . . . to stop Hasimak from taking the throne.”

  “Please don’t even jest about that.” Sargus got up.

  Rivvek tried not to let it worry him. Yes, Hasimak was the oldest living Eldrennai, but it was hard to imagine how he could be a threat to . . . well, to the Aern if it came down to it. No, Rivvek was forced to ask kholster Rae’en for assistance. It would be sad to see Hasimak go, but if that was the required sacrifice to save as many of Rivvek’s people, as many of the Eldrennai, as he could. Rivvek intended to make that sacrifice and any others the gods demanded.

  “Don’t forget the book.” He gestured, and Sargus picked the heavy tome up off of the camp table.

  “My prince . . .” Sargus put a hand on Rivvek’s shoulder and seemed momentarily surprised by the scars beneath his tunic, still hot to the touch even through the fabric. “Maybe she won’t kill him.”

  “Kings die. A good king dies for his people when it is required.” Rivvek’s voice cracked as he whispered the words. Believing them didn’t take dismiss their sting in the slightest. “You just promise me we’ll make his sacrifice mean something.”

  They flew before dawn, sunrise catching up with them halfway to Port Ammond. The rising light lent the flowing myr grass a fiery aspect. Rivvek, carried by Bhaeshal’s Aeromancy, caught himself staring down at it and remembering another departure one hundred and thirteen years before.

  *

  He’d been scarless then, a haughty elemental lord with command of all four elements as was his birthright. A Flamewing, like his mother, when he worked magic wings of fire sprouted from his back. A glory to behold. It had been like armor, that pride, and Kholster had cracked it.

  The Aern himself, First of One Hundred, stood in the last light of the third day of the Grand Conjunction, bone-steel mail—uledinium, his people had called it, but Rivvek would never dare to refer to it as that again—denim trousers belted at the waist with knotted bone-steel chain. Even those clunky boots had seemed grand to the prince. A Vael princess named Kari (not-yet-queen), her head petals cascading over Kholster’s shoulder as she leaned against him, watched Rivvek with sad, wide eyes.

  “You are right,” Rivvek said hoarsely. “What you say is true. My father told me I should believe your version of any history you chose to share with me and, hard as it is, I do. But, Kholster, what would you have me do? How can I fix this? My people. My ancestors. There is no excuse for what they did to you. No excuse for my father’s order at As You Please. No excuse for the mistreatment of the Vael. Not for any of it. I came here ready to hate you. Maybe I did hate you at first, but now . . .”

  “There is nothing you can do, Oathbreaker prince,” Kholster said, his voice gentle. “But I, or my representative, will return again in one hundred years for the next Conjunction if for no other reason than that you have heard and believed. You have my oath on it.”

  Rivvek opened his mouth to object.

  “Unasked for,” Kholster laughed. “I know.”

  “I will find a way,” Rivvek answered. “I will find a way, not to make things right, but as right as they can be.”

  Kholster laughed again. “Good hunting then, but I fear your quarry is long dead, if it ever existed.”

  “Princess Kari,” Rivvek shook his head. “Is there anything I can offer the Vael other than my apology?”

  “The Vael have no Litany to recite against you, Prince Rivvek.” Kari smiled pityingly at him. “You are guilty of nothing in my—or our—eyes. Keep it that way and we ask nothing more. If Kholster agrees, you are even welcome in The Parliament of Ages.”

  Kholster nodded his assent.

  “Such,” Rivvek answered, “is my intent.”

  “No promise?” Kholster asked.

  “I swear that it is my intent, but I cannot read what the future may hold . . . and accidents happen.”

  CHAPTER 2

  BURN IT DOWN

  Sparks flashed underground, pinpoints of light reflected in reptilian eyes as each rasping scrape of flint and steel briefly illuminated the scale-covered bodies of the invaders. General Tsan exulted in the percussive rhythms pounded out by the Zaurruk handlers behind him in the tunnel, their holding song keeping the massive serpents in check as they shifted impatiently, longing to strike. Cutting the air with a precise bob of his wedge-shaped head, Tsan put a foreclaw on the top of the gray-scaled firelighter’s cranium just between its eye ridges.

  > Tsan tapped the phrase in Zaurtol with a few sharp twitches of his tail.

  > the firelighter ducked low on all fours, sprayer nozzle and striker still gripped in his forepaws, head touching the stone floor of the tunnel. The peculiar rig of glass, brass, and leather strapped to his back sloshed as he moved. >

  > Tsan tapped with a dismissive flex of his tail. Just when a little firedamp might have been useful. At least it wasn’t cold. The body heat of the assembled attack force helped moderately in that regard, but the magic of the Root Tree overhead was responsible for most of it.

  Tsan’s nictating membranes flicked up and down over his slit-pupiled eyes. Once. Twice. He peered back at the retreating firelighter. Was that one the third hatchling of the second brood of Marsis, or was he conflating him with one of the Zaurruk handlers? Bah! It hardly mattered. He waved the firelighter away, turning to his personal guard with their black scales banded by narrow stripes of iridescent blue, an odd contrast to Tsan’s scales of ruddy red.

  > Tsan tapped.

  > Kuort answered. Plenty of time. Tsan didn’t know how warmbloods survived with such limitations. Unable to hold their breath for so much as a candlemark or to survive being frozen . . . it astounded him that there were still so many warmbloods in the world.

  Good. Tsan’s forked tongue flicked out, tasting the stale atmosphere of the tunnel. Sealing vents in active sections of the maze of underground passages that comprised Xasti’Kaur, the Shadow Road, made timing tricky at certain strategic phases of the plan, but it could also catch the Eldrennai by surprise and leave them gasping in the blackdamp if they figured out what the Sri’Zaur were actually planning before the shard-wielding assassins of Asvrin’s Shades sowed confusion and death among those who had lulled themselves into a false sense of immortality.

  Asvrin, Tsan thought, I am so proud of your rise to power . . . though I am no longer your mother. You, even more than Dryga, are one to keep an eye on, if not a claw in.

  Tsan turned away from his guard, dropping to all fours and peering up at his army’s current objective. The stone, far colder than the air around it, hurt the joints of his forepaws, a sign that his gender switch was soon approaching. The switch, he did not doubt, was responsible for turning his mind to children from his previous clutches . . . those he could still recall.
br />   Tsan preferred being female; he felt more agile, more lithe, and even his scales were smoother, more supple. But the timing . . . taking the time to mother another brood at all, much less in wartime, was unthinkable. He’d had to take too many new names, stop and restart his career too many times to make that sacrifice again. Heresy or not. Anger ripped through him, speeding his heartbeat, diminishing his air reserves, and Tsan reined the line of thought in. Resisting the gender switch enflamed emotions, wreaking havoc with impulse control. Letting it happen meant peace and steadiness, but it would have to wait.

  Filling his mind with an inferno, scourging his mind of all distraction beyond his current purpose, Tsan deliberately slowed his heartbeat. Eyes half-lidded and lazy, he channeled the confidence he’d felt at Na’Shie when he had successfully cut off all hope of aid to the Eldrennai from the human kingdoms beyond the Sri’Zauran Mountains. One last step and the way would be prepared.

  But first the flames. He stretched his jaws wide, pops of temporary dislocation music to his auditory receptors.

  > Tsan tapped, lingering on his Prime Flamefang’s name. He’d done as he’d promised the alchemists back home, had given their Zaur firelighter and his accompanying device a chance. He was unsurprised that they had failed. Still, there were numerous ways to start a fire—a few extra for Sri’Zaur such as Brazz. I may need his help with more delicate matters before the week is out . . . but first we burn the Vael. Wedged head angling up like a hound sniffing the air, Tsan crept in closer to the mass of tree roots exposed by his Zaur’s tunneling. Digging a foreclaw into the wood, he chuffed as the tiny root hairs wriggled away from him in a futile attempt at escape. The Vael Root Tree was as weak as a human in its way.

  Tsan’s humor died when the sap welling up from beneath his black claw was a honeyed amber color. The youngest Root Tree, yes, but transmuted enough, even at this early stage in his root taking, to have a different sap from the rest of its race, the Vael.

  It would have so much easier to get the warlord’s Vael blood sample before the battle even started, Tsan mused. Alas.

  What Warlord Xastix wanted with samples from the Weeds, scarbacks, and stump ears, Tsan did not know. He did not need to know. His place was merely to deliver the blood and, if possible, a treaty with the Weeds. None of that, of course, erased his desire to know.

  > General Tsan snapped his claws in the vague direction of the three guards nearest him. After a brief bit of shuffling, an older Sri’Zaur with yellow scales marked by zigzagged lines of fiery orange padded near.

  > the Sri’Zaur clicked softly, rising up to stand, bipedal, when he reached his commanding officer. >

  Move aside? Tsan’s anger flared, accompanied by a sharp abdominal pain. How dare that old—

  Ah. Eagerness. Tsan recognized the gleam in Brazz’s eyes and released his ill humor, his battle calm reasserting control of his emotions. Fire was the barren old reptile’s life, his only love; why not let him do his job and admire him for his dedication? Had he not burned Na’Shie? >

  Brazz withdrew a flask from one of the pouch-like pockets lining the leather vest that hugged his chest tightly, matching the lines of his form. Sulfur and citrus odors bit the air as Brazz uncapped the flask. He wafted the elixir beneath his nostrils, savoring its acrid aroma before downing its contents in one long pull.

  Tsan resisted the urge to demand one of the alchemical flasks then and there.

  Patience, he chided himself, or they must all reveal your heresy or share the guilt. Tsan knew commanders who would, but no . . . it was enough that his soldiers overlooked the ruddy red of his once-black scales and what that color change meant. He would approach Brazz about an alchemical remediation on the old Flamefang’s sleep cycle. Tsan peered over the assembled Zaur and Sri’Zaur, entertaining a premature notion about commandeering a flask from one of his newer Flamefangs. But . . . no, best to go to Brazz directly. Dragonvenom was useful for its effect on a Flamefang, true, but it had other, less well-known uses. . . . Uses with which he knew Brazz to be well acquainted. And Brazz wouldn’t ask any questions or wag tongue or tail about it.

  Why staving off the gender switch remained heresy, Tsan understood up to a point, but he refused to let such foolish convention keep him from seeing this war to its end. Why forbid females to fight, especially since his venom was so much more deliciously toxic when he was female? It had made sense when they had first fled into the depths to recoup their strength and even in the years between wars when repopulation was vital, but during the war, when the ranks already brimmed with eager soldiers thirsty for Eldrennai blood?

  Tsan watched hungrily as Brazz returned the empty flask to his belly pack. The Sri’Zaur’s eyes lit from within as the dragonvenom worked its magic, blue flame spreading from his slit pupils to his orange markings, filling the corridor with light. How Tsan envied such—

  Later, Tsan told himself. You still have time. First, burn the Weeds. Focus!

  > General Tsan repeated.

  “Not long,” Brazz cackled, wasting breath in a series of grating hisses as he reached into a separate pouch belted to his abdomen and began withdrawing pawfuls of dark powdered metal, which he tossed onto the roots, letting it coat them as much as possible. “Not long. Just a little seasoning to kindle our hate. Help it bite. Help it spread. The Zaurruk will breach the surface when I signal?”

  > General Tsan tapped harder than he’d intended.

  Brazz opened his mouth to say or ask something but clamped it shut as if thinking the better of it. He offered the general a respectful throat baring in its stead.

  > General Tsan turned away back to his troops. > Tsan tapped as he left Brazz to his work, >

  And then it will be me who is gifted with a shard as a sign of the warlord’s trust, not Dryga.

  Dryga, I should have crushed your egg. I wonder if I will regret not having crushed Asvrin’s, in the end. . .

  A hundred enthusiastic vibrations washed over him, banishing the thoughts. His forked gray tongue tasted the air with relish.

  > some of the Zaur were tapping.

  General Tsan chuffed, surrendering to their enthusiasm by tapping out the same message. It was so nice when Kilke’s plans aligned with his own. Tsan had wanted to burn a Root Tree ever since he’d discovered the Weeds could grow them, and now he had orders to burn several, if needed. No ill-timed quirk of biology would stand in his way. He refused to allow it.

  *

  Sleeping soundly on a bed of moss, Prince Kholburran stirred. He reached out for Malli, possessed of a distinct notion she had gotten up to patrol. His lips twitched up at the corners in a reassured smile when his fingertips found her shoulder, the warmth of her smooth bark reassuring at first, but then not so much. If Malli was still in bed, then what was that noise?

  Sensing motion as Kholburran rolled off the bed, the lichen-covered ceiling responded with a soft glow of mixed blues and yellows, casting an uneven green illumination over the sparsely appointed room. Running a hand through his spiky red head petals, Kholburran yawned, widely exposing the thorny protrusions from his unpruned dental ridge that had earned him his most hated nickname.

  “Come back to bed, Snapdragon,” Malli purred, still half-asleep.

  Kholburran snorted, amused by the giddy pardons love granted so lightly. The rotted nickname did not sound bad in the slightest when Malli used it. As a sproutling, he had wondered whether pruning and scoring his dental ridges like some Vael did would put an end to the nickname, but it seemed too painful and vain. He knew back in the slave days Uled had required it, consider
ing the undifferentiated ridges to be a flaw, but Kholburran liked his mouth better without any useless carving.

  “Do you hear that?” Kholburran whispered. Was hear even the right word?

  Malli came awake in an instant, rolling out of bed and seizing her heartbow in one swift motion. One of the many things he loved about her was how she paid attention to his instincts even though he was a boy-type person. She understood he wasn’t some fragile thing to be protected and hidden away until he was old enough to Take Root. She—

  “Take Root.” Kholburran surveyed his surroundings in the increasing illumination, his jade eyes, seemingly without iris or pupil, taking in everything. At first he’d thought it was a sound that had awoken him, but now that he was paying full attention, it felt more like a vibration . . . as if he were trembling all the way down to his core wood, not violently, but enough to notice.

  Kholburran paced the room, toes squinching in the moist mossy carpet. He stopped, closing his eyes. Turning slowly in place, reaching out, senses open, he quested for some inkling of what disturbed him.

  Uncle Tran was getting better at being a Root Tree, but he was still learning. The rooms within him tended to feel sparse. His beds clung low to the ground more like drier raised extensions of the soft mossy carpeting than mattresses and sheets. He finally had proper doors, serviceable utilitarian things with no locks, but they worked. The shelving, what there was of it, ran more along the lines of conveniently placed and proportioned bumps-on-a-log than the elaborate craftsmanship of the Twin Root Trees Hashan and Warrune where Kholburran had grown up.

  Kholburran counted to seven before opening his eyes. Had anything changed?

  A thin line of sap ran down from the edges of the room along the join between ceiling and wall. Sap? What was Uncle Tran trying to do? Grow windows? Kholburran ran his thumb and forefingers together, his own sap-like sweat slick beneath them, the piney scent filling his nostrils.