The White Dragon Read online

  Only Armian never had a chance to embrace Dar, because I killed him...

  Bile rose in his throat. His head swam. Tansen pressed a filthy hand to the bitterly painful wound at his side. His thoughts were wandering too much.

  Focus on the task at hand.

  That was his training, part of the discipline that made him who he was, the man he had become out of the wreckage of his boyhood. He was a shatai, a member of the finest warrior caste in the three corners of the world. Nine years of exile to escape the bloodvow he had earned from Kiloran the night he had murdered Armian... Father, father... Five of those years spent training under a shatai-kaj in Kinto, a great swordmaster who'd been just eccentric enough to take on an ignorant and unkempt Silerian peasant boy as his apprentice.

  Kiloran had wanted him dead before, and wanted him dead now. The Valdani had placed a high price on Tansen's head, second only to Josarian. Society assassins had come for him, as had Valdani Outlookers. But the brand carved into his chest—the mark of a shatai—wasn't just for show. He had earned it with five years of training that many apprentices didn't survive. He had faced not only Kiloran, but Dar Herself, and he knew that some people now even believed that he couldn't be killed.

  But every man can be killed. Every man.

  Certainly he had killed enough men to know how true that was, but it was something he had learned upon his first killing, long before becoming a shatai. The night he had murdered Armian, the greatest warrior he had ever seen up until then...

  The night I betrayed and slaughtered my bloodfather...

  Tansen straightened up and continued walking, pushing the memory of Armian deep into the recesses of his mind, where he knew it would lurk in wait for him. When he slept, yes, when he slept... that was when he inevitably remembered the father he had murdered.

  Every man can be killed.

  True, he had faced many enemies and always won. A shatai was very hard to kill, and he knew without boasting that he was harder to kill than most. But he had no illusions about being invincible. His shatai-kaj had seen to that. For five years, every single day of Tansen's training as a shatai had begun with the ritual phrase he was supposed to utter with every challenge and before every fight: I am prepared to die today. Are you?

  The sudden leap of his senses warned him of danger before any conscious thought. The years of training, the endless repetitions and mind-numbing exercises had not gone to waste. He unsheathed his words and spun to face his attacker before the first blow of the assassin's ambush could strike him.

  "I'm not that prepared to die," he rasped, light-headed from the sudden movement.

  He parried another stab of the assassin's glittering shir as he shifted in response to the movement of air on his left—a second attacker. Sensing the opening even before he saw it, Tansen killed that one with a quick slash across the throat. Messy, he acknowledged as the hot blood sprayed him, but effective.

  Where you know there is one, fight as if there were many, his kaj had taught him, for you'll find that there often are.

  He slashed the wrist of the first attacker and moved to fight the imagined others—who, as it turned out, did indeed exist.

  "Kaja was right again," he muttered, fighting for air and balance. With the first attacker on his knees and the second attacker dead, Tansen confronted four more surrounding him.

  Six assassins. An ambush. Kiloran had learned from his mistakes, and so had his men. Gone were the days when a sole assassin would openly challenge Tansen in the traditional manner of the Society.

  He ignored the weakness claiming his body, the fierce pain of his wound, the vicious memories the White Dragon had left on his flesh. A shatai was contemptuous of pain, clear-headed in combat, and most focused at the moment when other men were most terrified. Tansen fought on eight sides and three levels, as he had been taught, taking control of the fight, of the footing, of the pace. He made a second kill, under the ribs and into the heart. The thrust took strength and a little too much time under the circumstances, but the opening was there and he took it rather than wait for another.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the first attacker slide into unconsciousness, soon to bleed to death. Tansen knew, without the panic or fear which shackled lesser men to failure and death, that he must kill the remaining three quickly, before the last of his strength failed him and he made his first mistake. Kiloran had not sent inexperienced young braggarts after him. Tansen could tell that these men needed only one mistake, a single opening, to make their kill.

  Of the three who still faced him, one carried two shir, as Tansen carried two swords. The other two assassins fought more traditionally, each swinging a yahr in one hand and wielding a shir in the other. That meant that, like Tansen, these two had probably been born to the mountains; the yahr, a deadly striking weapon, was typically used by the mountain-born shallaheen. It was made of two smooth, short, wooden sticks, sometimes metal-tipped, which were joined by a short rope or chain. To someone who didn't know what it was, it merely looked like a small bundle of sticks, or a distinctive shallah grain flail, the tool which had inspired the weapon. Developed two hundred years ago as a response to Valdani laws against Silerians carrying weapons, it had remained largely secret from the Valdani until the rebellion.

  Tansen blocked a blow from one of the yahr and could tell, by the feel of it against his blade, that it was made of petrified Kintish wood—an expensive luxury, as typical of assassins as were the black-dyed gossamer tunics these men wore. Even one careless blow of such a yahr could crush bones in Tansen's hand. A solid hit would probably break his forearm or shatter his kneecap. And a good blow to the head.... One would stun him, another blow or two would crush his skull. He knew, because he had killed Armian that way...

  Focus on the task at hand.

  His lungs were burning. He stepped away from a thrust before it even came, knowing by the shift of the assassins' shoulders and the flicker of their eyes what they would do before they did it. A shatai trained to know his enemies in combat even better than they knew themselves. Killing was a passion among Silerians, but only work to a shatai. Clear, focused, skilled work.

  Tansen spun to kill one of his opponents—and missed. His left blade tangled with a yahr while his right blocked the jab of a shir. He flipped the glittering water-born blade out of the assassin's hand and completed the arc of his move by slashing the man's face. His vision swam briefly from the effort, but luckily the assassin fell back, clutching his bloody face in pain. Tansen heard the labored rasp of his own breath, felt sluggishness creeping into his limbs, and knew how little time he had left to finish this.

  A yahr swung at his head. He dropped to one knee and spun quickly, arms whirling. One assassin screamed horribly as his belly split open and his guts spilled out. Another leapt forward —and collapsed when his leg refused to support his weight. He looked down and saw blood spurting from the huge gash in his thigh. His confused gaze flashed back to Tansen a moment before the shatai slit his throat.

  Tansen heard a footstep behind him and knew the assassin with the slashed face was making another attack. Still on one knee, Tansen blocked the overhead blow from behind with his left blade and simultaneously flipped his right-hand sword into a reverse grip and thrust behind him, sinking it deep into the assassin's vitals.

  The assassin collapsed on top of him. The fall wrenched the sword out of Tansen's hand before he could withdraw the thrust. The man's shir touched his cheek, burning him with its icy fury. Tansen tumbled to the ground under the assault of the assassin's full body weight. They rolled sideways, locked together, the assassin behind Tansen, and grappled on the rocky blood-soaked soil.

  My swords...

  Fighting to stay conscious, Tansen realized he had let go of both swords now.

  Never let go of—

  His mind went blank with hot white pain when the assassin's murderous struggles drove his burning shir wound against a rock poking out of the ground. His vision swam with cold fire, wi
th the black burning agony of sharp stone digging into the open wound.

  Come on, he's the last one, finish him and you can live, damn it.

  Grinding his teeth together, Tansen groped behind him for the sword sticking out of the assassin's torso. He found it—and lost his grip as his hand slipped on the bloody hilt. He felt the shir at his throat—Sweet Dar, he hasn't dropped it?—and forgot about his sword hilt as he grabbed at the dagger a moment before it could kill him. He grunted in pain as the wavy blade bit into his palm. Nothing hurt like a shir, not even the branding iron which his kaj had used on his chest to mark him as a shatai.

  Ice and death, all of Kiloran's sharp-edged power, burned into his flesh and ignited his blood as he wrestled for the shir, so close to his throat that it stung the flesh there. The blade bit deeper into his palm, the blood making its water-smooth surface too slick to grasp firmly.

  Think, think... Use your head.

  He rocked back and rolled harder onto his wound, fighting the blackout threatened by his pain-swamped senses. He shifted just enough to grope wildly with his other hand and found the hilt of his sword again. Just barely able to reach it... The assassin screamed as Tansen's groping hand finally bumped hard into the sword buried in his torso.

  This is it—move!

  Tansen knocked the shir away from his throat, got a better grip on his sword hilt, and yanked it up with the last of his strength. When he felt the hot flow of his enemy's vitals, the death-sag of the body clinging to him, he knew he had won.

  He wasn't so sure he would live, though.

  Six dead.

  Was that all of them? Would more come now, a second wave? He hoped not. He wasn't sure he could even stand up, never mind fight a few more assassins. Darfire, hadn't Josarian told him only two days ago to get his strength back before going into combat again?

  Josarian...

  No, he couldn't think about Josarian. Not now.

  Get up. You have work to do.

  All they had dreamed together, all they had fought for side by side, Sileria united and free...

  Six dead.

  It had come to this. As it always did. Silerians fighting each other to the death, killing each other in murderous feuds over past insults, over the countless betrayals and injuries they committed against each other only because they couldn't seem to help themselves. Only because it had always been this way here. Only because they had always hated each other even more than they hated any of their conquerors.

  He himself had come here straight from Elelar's bedchamber, where he had gone to kill her in vengeance for her betrayal of Josarian. Wouldn't Mirabar hate him forever now, only because he hadn't been able to do it, after all, and she would see that as betrayal, too? Hadn't he been driven there by the horror of Kiloran's vengeance against Josarian—Josarian who had killed the waterlord's only son in vengeance over Kiloran's betrayal of him? And Kiloran had always wanted Tansen dead, Tansen most of all, in vengeance for what he had done to Armian.

  Must it always be this way here?

  The wound at his side hurt so much that every breath was agony. His bleeding hand hurt like all the Fires of Dar. His palms were scarred, like those of all shallaheen, from slicing them open for bloodpacts and bloodvows; but no one was ever crazy enough to do that with a shir. He could hardly move the wounded hand, it was so painful.

  Get up.

  He couldn't lie here all day, just waiting for another assassin to come along and find him. And he'd never make it to Dalishar's caves now, not in this condition.

  Sanctuary.

  He must find a Sanctuary of the Sisterhood. He would be safe there. No Silerian ever violated Sanctuary, not feuding clans, not vengeful toreni, not even the Society.

  There was a Sanctuary east of here, down another of Mount Dalishar's treacherous paths. It was inhabited by Sister Velikar, who was old, ugly, and notoriously mean, but a gifted healer.

  I'll never make it.

  He had to make it.

  Focus on the task at hand—which, in this case, would be not dying in a pool of assassin's blood.

  He lifted his head... and was promptly and humiliatingly sick.

  Some legendary warrior.

  He took steady, controlled, agonizing breaths, fighting to stay conscious. When he thought there was a reasonable chance that he wouldn't pass out, he slowly pushed the ground away and rose to one hand and both knees. Body trembling, head spinning, wounds throbbing, he stayed there awhile, concentrating on the heroic tasks of not fainting and not vomiting again.

  My swords.

  He looked around and found one lying close at hand. The motto of his kaj, carved into the blade in Kintish hieroglyphs—Draw it with honor, sheathe it with courage—was now obscured by filth. For the first time in his entire career as a shatai, Tansen didn't flip the blood off before resheathing it, didn't wipe it or clean it. He just slid the dusty blood-encrusted blade into its sheath.

  He knew damn well where the other sword was, the one with his own motto carved into its blade. From one thing, another is born—as the shatai was born of the orphaned shallah boy, so long ago.

  He gripped the sword's hilt, now sticky with blood rather than slick with it, braced his knee against the assassin's corpse, and pulled. He thought he'd vomit again, or at least that his skull would split wide open. He tried to breathe without actually letting his wounded side move, but that only made him dizzier.

  There was enough of the assassin still clinging to this blade that Tansen made the monumental effort of wiping it—on the leggings of another nearby corpse—before sheathing it in the soft leather harness which fit him like a second skin.

  Then, somehow, he was on his feet, leaning over, one hand resting on his knee while he studied the bleeding palm of the other hand. He slowly closed the coldly burning hand into a fist. He should wrap it, try to stop the bleeding, but he lacked the energy.

  He was filthy. And thirsty. Water. He should find water.

  Dar have mercy, let it be safe water.

  Kiloran's secret control of the Zilar River had shocked them all, and had enabled the old waterlord to ambush and kill Josarian. If Kiloran controlled any water supplies this close to the Dalishar caves, this deep in Josarian's territory, then they were in desperate trouble. Tansen could fight as many assassins as Kiloran could send, but no one could do without water. That was, of course, what made the waterlords so powerful.

  Water. I need water.

  Yes, he would find water... Damn it, where is there water around here? He couldn't remember. Had he ever needed to know before?

  He took a good look around... and finally saw the extent of the carnage. Six brutally slain men lay in a sea of blood. Some of their eyes were open. One's head was barely still attached to his body. Another's guts had spilled all around him.

  Tansen didn't even have the energy to roll them into the brush or make them look more decent. He pitied whoever came upon this scene, but he had reached the end of his strength. There was nothing he could do about the sight of this bloodbath now.

  Focus.

  He would find water, then he would head toward Sanctuary. Once there, he would try to get a message to Mirabar.

  Awaiting news of Elelar's death.

  Yes, that was what Mirabar would want to know, even more than she'd want to know where in the Fires Tansen was.

  Don't come back until it is done, she had said.

  He had seen the look in her eyes when they had gone their separate ways after Josarian's death, when he had sent her to safety at Dalishar and had set out for Chandar to kill Elelar in the night. He had heard the steel in her voice.

  Don't come back to me unless you can show me Elelar's blood on your sword.

  She'd never forgive him for not doing it. And he'd have to be a much braver man not to dread a woman's wrath. He'd rather walk all the way to Lake Kandahar now, to face Kiloran in his underwater palace, than ascend the rest of Mount Dalishar and tell Mirabar, as he must, that he—

  A te
rrible fear seized him, his dazed mind finally realizing what this ambush meant. If Kiloran had set a trap for him on the slopes of Dalishar, then he might have done the same for Mirabar. Perhaps with these very men.

  Dar have mercy, could she already be dead? Did she make it to the sacred caves, or was she lying in a pool of her own blood somewhere farther up the mountain?

  She was far from helpless even when alone, and he knew that Najdan had been with her—Najdan, the assassin who had betrayed Kiloran to protect Mirabar and save the Firebringer. So even if there was an attack, Mirabar might well have survived it.

  But he had to be sure. He couldn't go to Sanctuary now, not until he was sure she was alive. She might hate him for all eternity for letting Elelar live, but he...

  I need to know she's safe. I need to know that much.

  He staggered forward, gritting his teeth, refusing to think about the punishing hike ahead, the great distance he would have to go in this condition—if I don't find her body only a hundred paces ahead of me—much of it in the dark.

  He had taken perhaps a dozen steps when he fell to his knees.

  He tried to get up. Fell down. Tried again. Collapsed face down on the hard, dusty ground.

  Mira...

  He pressed a hand to his aching wound. The hand came away drenched in blood.

  That's not good.

  He put his hand back over the wound and pressed hard. The pain made his vision go black, but pressure was the only way he could think of to slow the blood flow.

  Josarian, I will join you...

  No, he wouldn't, after all. Even if he, so long a skeptic, went to the Otherworld, Josarian would not. A lifelong believer, Josarian had died in the dripping crystalline jaws of the White Dragon, from which the only escape was oblivion when Kiloran finally died. Josarian, who had never feared death because he believed it would unite him in the Otherworld with his beloved Calidar, the wife who had died in childbirth... Josarian was forever gone. He had believed in sacrifice, had served Dar to the exclusion of all else...

  And You betrayed him, Dar. You let him die. Damn You forever.