The Rise and Fall of a Dragon King

Nothing. By then, the other druids had joined him. They searched the house frantically, as aware of the brightening horizon as they were of the missing half-elf. A search of the alley produced a pair of shattered night-shutters, nothing more. A search of all the inside rooms brought word that there was a young woman missing, too.

"She got up in the middle of the night, my lord, put on her shift, and went to the door," a somewhat younger girl explained to Pavek. "I asked her what was the matter, and she didn't answer. She didn't seem to hear me at all. It were passing odd, my lord, but I didn't think no harm would come of it. Whim of the Lion, my lord."

To no one's surprise, the girl identified the linen garment Pavek held in his hand as belonging to the missing woman.

Whim of the Damned Lion, indeed. Pavek swore a string of templar oaths that widened the eyes of Quraiters. But the whim of the Lion-King was the best, the only, explanation he could offer his stu

"He's young. Impulsive and reckless," one of the other druids said. "He'll be here waiting for us when we get back."

"And we'll never hear the end of it," another added.

Pavek raked his hair and stared at the sky. In his heart, he reminded himself that he was not the one to judge Hamanu of Urik and that one life measured against Hamanu's crimes and accomplishments was not terribly significant. It was merely that the life had belonged to a friend, and he'd thought another friend might respect it.

Urik's situation had changed overnight, and not for the better. From the south gate tower, Pavek saw the roofs and kitchen-smoke of four market villages, the velvet expanse of Urik's farmland, and well beyond all that, three dusty, torch-lit smears where the armies of Nibenay, Gulg, and Giustenal had reestablished themselves during the night. Urik's army had fallen back into a thick black line between the farmland and the enemy.

"Orders," Javed said when Pavek stepped back from the tower balustrade. "Everybody's been moving all night. Everybody's tired, and we're jammed up like fish in a barrel. Not enough room to fight. Not for us or them. There's not going to be a battle."

The ebony-ski

"He told me to be here at dawn," was Pavek's answer, until he added—foolishly—"Ruari's missing. Gone from his bed. A girl, too."

It was a foolish remark because there wasn't a full-elf anywhere who'd ever truly sympathized with a half-elf. If the missing girl had been an elf, that might have gotten a rise out of the Hero of Urik, but for Ruari the best Javed could manage was a sigh and an offhand gesture.

"He destroyed the trolls, every last one of them," the commandant said, as if that accounted for Ruari's fate. "He knows that whether there's battle today or not, he's not walking away from this battlefield. Not the way he walked onto it."

The Hero of Urik had performed some unpleasant duties during his forty-year tenure. Every few years, he'd marched the slave levies into the barrens and kept watch over them until the Dragon of Tyr showed up.

"We're meat, Pavek," said the Hero of Urik. "Less than meat. Just grease and ash. That's all that was left when Borys was done with them. But I saw those shards, too." He shook his head. "We die so the Lion can fight Rajaat. It's fair, I suppose, but I'd rather fight Rajaat myself."

Beyond the steel medallion he wore, Javed didn't have much faith in magic, whether it was sorcery or druidry. But it was magic that drew them all to the balustrade when a sergeant shouted:

"There he is!"

The gates hadn't opened, and there were no outbuildings beyond the tower where Hamanu could have hidden while he strapped on the glowing armor that had been his hallmark at the front of Urik armies for thirteen ages. Yet, he was there, a solitary figure, shining in the light as the bloody sun poked above the horizon, walking south to face his enemies' might.

Pavek wanted to believe. He wanted to feel his heart soar with admiration and awe for a true champion. He even wanted the despair of knowing not even a champion could surmount the odds the Lion-King faced. Instead, he felt nothing, a dull, sour nothing because, in taking Ruari, Hamanu had proved he was no different than his enemies, and there was no hope for Athas.

Still, he couldn't turn away. He watched, transfixed, as the striding figure grew smaller and smaller, until he couldn't see it at all.

"What next?" one of the Quraite druids asked. "Is it time to evoke the guardian?"

Pavek shook his head. He sat down with his back against the southern balustrade and buried his face in his hands. The sun began its daily climb from the eastern horizon. The sky changed color, and the first hints of the day's heat could be felt in the air. Pavek raised his head and studied the light. At the rate Hamanu had been walking, he should have been nearing one of the villages. He lowered his head again.

"Pavek!"

He looked up. The voice was so familiar. He thought it had come from his heart, not his ears—but the others with him had heard it, too, and were looking at the stairs.

"Pavek!"

Pavek was on his feet when Ruari cleared the last stain. "Pavek—you'll never believe what happened—"

Pavek needed another moment to realize the shirt was silk, trimmed with gold, nothing Ruari could have found in the red-and-yellow house in the templar quarter.

Then he seized Ruari's wrists and gave them a violent shake. "Where were you, Ru? I looked all over. You weren't in your room."

"You'll never believe—" Ruari repeated before his lungs demanded air.

"Try me."

They gave him more water and a stool to sit on.

"I was drunk, Pavek—"

"I know."

"I was so drunk I thought she was Death when she came into my room. But she wasn't, Pavek," Ruari gulped more water.

Pavek waited. He didn't really need to hear anything more. It was enough that Ruari had survived whatever encounter he'd had with the Lion-King, because, surely, that was Hamanu's shirt he was wearing. He wanted nothing more than to grab his friend and hold him tight, but Ruari had gotten his breath and was talking again.

"She was so beautiful, standing there in the moonlight. I thought—I thought it couldn't get better, then we were flying, Pavek—"

Pavek started to shake his head in disbelief, then curbed himself. Ruari hadn't been in his room; Ruari had been with Hamanu—whatever else the half-elf had seen or thought or chose to believe—and he could very well have been flying. There had to be some explanation for the shirt.

"Then, I woke up in this huge bed—on the palace roof. The palace roof! Do you believe it?"

Pavek nodded.

"Wind and fire—I knew you'd be looking for me. I found some clothes and got out of there as quick as I could—I knew you'd be angry, Pavek. I knew you would. But what does it mean?"

"Whim of the Lion," a druid and sergeant said together.

"What about the girl?" Pavek asked.

Ruari blushed; his already heat-flushed skin turned a shade darker than the bloody sun. "I sent her back to your house—in a shirt, Pavek. I found another shirt for her and sent her back to the templar quarter."

There was laughter, from the women as well as the men. Ruari's face became dangerously bright.

"What else was I supposed to do?" he demanded.

"Nothing, Ru," Pavek assured him. "You did the right thing." Then he welcomed his friend back from the presumed-dead with a bone-snapping embrace. "What's her name?"

"I don't know, Pavek. But she's beautiful, and I think she loves me," Ruari whispered his answers before they separated. "I think it's forever."