Tau could feel her shaking. Her grip was tight, but she was shaking.
“I’ll not let them have you,” he promised. “I’ll stop them.”
It shouldn’t have worked. Anyone with sense could foresee the evening’s end, and yet Tau’s words settled her.
“We have faith,” she said, “in the Goddess and in those loyal to us.”
Silently, Nyah began to weep. Kana fidgeted with his spear. Kellan and the others had fallen back. Uduak was dragging Yaw with him. The stairs had been captured and Tau hated himself for making an impossible promise.
The end was coming and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was not so powerful, he thought, as the ground beneath his feet began to writhe and the sound of a hundred thunderclaps tore through the night.
Indlovu were tossed from the stairs by the quake and Queen’s Guards fell from the battlements. Tau pulled the queen away from its edge, forcing her down. It sounded and felt like he was in the middle of an avalanche. Tau had seen them before, in the mountains, but they were in the valley and, lying on the floor of the battlements, he couldn’t see what had caused the furor. He heard the screams, though. He heard the horror in the voices of the men below.
Then a torrent of blazing fire, a column of twisting flame, lit the sky. Even behind the battlements’ thick walls, the fire’s blistering heat curled the hairs on Tau’s skin.
“Goddess!” whimpered Nyah.
“Fire-demon!” said Kana, on the ground beside Tau and the queen.
Tau stood, helping the queen to her feet. He looked down on the courtyard. An entire section of it was gone, fallen away into a molten sinkhole from which the youngling had crawled.
The creature was, in turns, awe-inspiring and piteous. It was huge, but less than half the size of the dragon that had burned the hedeni in Daba. It had open sores on its body and many of its shimmering black scales were missing. Its wings were torn at the edges and its long, sinuous neck was collared, though the bronze chain that had held it in whatever prison from which it had escaped was snapped in two.
The youngling roared at the sky and turned its baleful look on the courtyard’s invading Indlovu, who were stunned to immobility. It opened its maw and belched a river of flames, incinerating thirty men. Tau had to cover his eyes, the fires were so bright, and when they died down, Tau saw that Odili’s Indlovu were attacking the beast. The stupidity and bravery of it made Tau believe that, perhaps, the Chosen were the greatest fighting force on Uhmlaba.
Tau’s opinion, however, made no difference to the youngling, which caught a man in its jaws, snapped him in two, then snatched at another with the clawed tips of its foreleg and flung that man like a rock, smashing him to pieces against one of the keep’s walls. The dragon roared again, and the Indlovu, brave as they were, fell back. They knew what was to come. The knowledge did not save them. The youngling breathed fire, turning the courtyard into an inferno.
“No one should control such. No one,” Kana said as Tau spotted the youngling’s handler.
“Zuri,” he whispered.
Zuri had her hands out, fingers splayed, toward the dragon, and from a hundred strides away, Tau could see the strain on her face.
“What did you do?” Tau said. “What did you do…?”
Kellan, Hadith, and Uduak had crawled over. Yaw was being tended by one of the Queen’s Guard. His shoulder was a mess.
“That is not a Central Mountain Guardian,” Hadith said.
“She freed the youngling,” Kellan added.
“The coterie,” Tau said. “Where is her Hex?”
Uduak saw them first. “There.”
Tau followed Uduak’s hand. The coterie were there, under guard by the five men Hadith had sent with Zuri.
“They’re not drawing energy from Isihogo,” Tau said.
“How can you know?” asked Hadith.
“They don’t have the look, the focus,” answered Kellan.
“Ah,” said Hadith, bouncing his eyes from Zuri to the coterie and no doubt seeing the difference. “But, without a Hex…” Hadith paused, working it out. “She knew. There was no time to bring us Guardians from the Central Mountains. She knew from the start.”
“What did you do…?” Tau whispered as the youngling blew fire at Odili’s retreating Indlovu and Zuri stumbled, only just keeping her feet.
Zuri directed it to the stairs and the youngling scorched the Indlovu on them, leaving behind nothing but char and ashes. The Queen’s Guard cheered, their voices holding an edge of hope, and the dragon whipped its head back and forth, looking for some unseen attacker.
The youngling had torn through the Indlovu and, no longer distracted, it was fighting Zuri’s control, weakening her hold, demanding that she pull ever greater amounts of energy from Isihogo. It was collapsing her shroud.
“It’s Odili!” shouted Kellan.
The wretch, along with four Indlovu, had emerged from one of the hallways leading to the courtyard. The youngling was between him and the destroyed gates. He was trapped.
“Kellan Okar,” Queen Tsiora said. “We wish that traitor captured or killed.”
“My queen!” Kellan signaled the men of Scale Jayyed and they headed for the stairs.
Tau had seen Odili. He didn’t care. Zuri had begun to bleed from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
“What have you done?” Tau said, going to his knees, emptying his mind, and flying to Isihogo.
EXPULSION
The youngling was there and its wings were not damaged; its scales were not missing. The youngling looked powerful, indestructible. Zuri was in front of it, holding her hands out and up. It had to be impossible, that someone so small could command such a majestic creature. Yet, the dragon heeled, though it would not for much longer.
Zuri’s shroud was little more than smoke before a breeze—thinning, vanishing, gone. And there she was, beautiful, glowing like the sun at dusk, warm and filled with life. Tau had never seen her in Isihogo unshrouded. She was the purest, most magnificent of the Goddess’s creations, and her light drew the demons in droves.
Tau ran to her through the blasting winds and gray-colored landscape. He ran to her side, pulled loose his swords, and steadied himself.
“Leave!” he yelled to Zuri, struggling to be heard over the underworld’s incessant storming.
Zuri still fought the dragon for control. “Can’t,” she said, nodding at the youngling. “She won’t let me.”
“They’re coming.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
The first demon had emerged from the mists. It charged them on six articulating legs. It had two sections of body—an abdomen and a thorax, its head embedded where a man’s chest would be. Its eyes, five of them, were fixed on Zuri, and its mouth, a gaping hole edged by bone-like pincers, stretched open. It snatched for her and Tau fought it back.
“I’m sorry,” Zuri said again.
Tau yelled at the demon, slashing at it over and over, as the next monstrosity, this one slithering across the ground like some enormous worm, attacked. He cut for the new beast’s head, but it avoided his blade and snapped back at him. Tau dodged and brought his strong-side sword crashing down on its back. It shrieked and retreated, giving Tau a chance to battle the six-legged freak.